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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



JESUS BROUGHT BACK 

i^etiitations on 
STfje Proilem of problems 



BY 



JOSEPH HENRY CROOKER 





CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 

1889 






Copyright 
By Joseph Henry Crocker 

A.D. 1888 



Tv\\ l-^ ^^ ' ''^^ 




\ 



TO 

Et^t SHfnibersits <S:!)annina €:lui), 

MADISON, WISCONSIN. 



CONTENTS. 



-♦- 



PAGE 

Introduction 7 

I. The Messianic Hope 15 

11. How THE Gospels were Written . S7 

III. Jesus of Nazareth 99 

IV. The Glad Tidings 141 

V. The Ministry of Jesus To-day . . 177 



INTRODUCTION. 

THIS little book upon the sublimest char- 
acter in history is written neither to 
instruct the specialist nor to amuse the curi- 
ous. Its aim is to give intelligent and earnest 
inquirers, who have no time for extended 
research, some of the most important results 
of recent scholarship upon this topic and 
other related subjects, together with certain 
observations bearing upon the religious life, 
suggested by these discoveries. While it 
has been prepared for the purpose of helping 
on that intellectual reconstruction of religion 
which is fast sweeping aside so many notions 
long held respecting the origin and nature of 
Christianity, yet the chief object has been to 
set forth an interpretation of the character 
and teaching of Jesus which will make him 
more attractive, and his gospel more powerful 
in human lives. 

It is a misfortune to have the man Jesus 
hidden out of sight behind the dogmas of 
speculative theology, not only because they 



8 Introduction. 

remove him from that strictly natural and 
human fellowship which ought to unite us to 
him, while they cut us off from the most ra- 
tional and inspiring appreciation of his char- 
acter, but because they interpose a strange 
mechanical scheme of redemption between 
our soul and the Father, whom Jesus strove 
to make his countrymen feel as an immediate 
Presence and an Infinite Love. And as de- 
structive criticism lays these dogmas in ruins, 
as it is fast doing, it is by no means certain 
that a true appreciation of Jesus or an ade- 
quate consciousness of Sonship will spontane- 
ously supplant the old faith. The outgrowth 
of a false doctrine is not always the inrooting 
of a true doctrine. Indeed, in many cases, 
we know that when men come to realize the 
unhistorical and irrational character of the 
Christ of theology, by which Jesus has been 
invested and obscured, they lose all interest 
in him and cease to avail themselves of the 
inspirations of his gospel ; and because what 
they once accepted as religion turns out to 
be fiction, they conclude that there is no 
sheltering Fatherhood presiding over the des- 
tinies of their lives. 

But however strangely the mediaeval scho- 
lastic may have misrepresented Jesus, and 



Introduction. 9 

however unwisely the iconoclast may scoff 
at this sacred name so rich in religious asso- 
ciations, yet we cannot afford to ignore Jesus 
of Nazareth. And an age which asks justice 
for Muhammed and pays loving tribute to 
Buddha cannot with reason be indifferent to 
Jesus. The man who leaves untasted the 
waters from this fountain neglects one of his 
greatest helps to the Divine Life ; and the 
man who turns a cynical spirit toward this 
Prophet of Galilee simply condemns his bet- 
ter self and ignores his own possibility. 

In this age of religious and theological 
transition, when old forms of belief are disap- 
pearing and old ideals of conduct are losing 
their power, it is worth while to cultivate just 
as rational an appreciation of Jesus as possi- 
ble ; and also to put forward that interpretation 
of his life and message which is least open to 
destructive criticism and is most serviceable 
for training in righteousness. As the Christ 
of theology loses its hold upon heart and 
mind, the need becomes greater for a por- 
traiture of Jesus which shall not offend the 
rational tendencies which are by pre-emi- 
nence the divine tendencies of the time; 
while the social unrest of these days makes it 
necessary that we abandon all side-issues and 



lo Introduction. 

trivial discussions that we may concentrate our 
emphasis upon the central truths and primary- 
duties of human life, which are nowhere bet- 
ter described than in his imperishable gospel. 
And it is hoped that the following brief and 
outline treatment of this great theme may be 
of some service in this direction. 

Doubtless from a literary point of view 
the large use of quotations in some of these 
chapters will seem a decided blemish. And 
yet, the motive which has prompted their 
use has not been either to display a wide 
knowledge of the subject or to save the 
effort of independent composition. The ob- 
ject of this book being as much to show the 
results and tendencies of modern scholarship 
as to discuss the problems involved in its 
title, it has been felt that this could in no 
better way be done than by placing before 
the reader the very words of eminent authors, 
which in many cases would carry more weight 
and be of more interest than any other state- 
ment of the same facts. So that, while not 
wishing to make a mere compilation, the aim 
has been to let the great leaders of opinion 
speak somewhat for themselves. 

The references to authorities placed at the 
beginning of each chapter are given simply 



Introduction. 1 1 

to aid such readers as may wish to gain a 
more thorough knowledge respecting these 
subjects. No attempt has been made to give 
extended lists of books for the use of special- 
ists, but the purpose has rather been to select 
such works as will afford a reasonably full 
and satisfactory knowledge of each topic. 
Only works in the English language have 
been set down, though many are translations 
from foreign tongues which give the results 
of the latest investigations. It seemed need- 
less to go into the exhaustive literature of the 
subject for students acquainted with French 
and German. Where several works on the 
same topic are given, the aim has been to 
refer to those that correct and supplement 
each other, both as regards the matter con- 
tained and the spirit of the writers. And 
while some conservative works are included 
in these lists, yet many from that side, in cer- 
tain respects valuable, have been omitted be- 
cause so vitiated by the bias of traditional 
theology. 

It was the original plan to print with these 
five other lectures : Jesus as the Messiah of 
the Apostles, Paul's Gospel of the Cross, 
Jesus as the Logos, Jesus as the Second Per- 
son in the Godhead, and Jesus as Redeemer. 



1 2 Introduction. 

But it has been decided to leave these more 
historical and doctrinal discussions for a sec- 
ond series to be called, ** The Christ Idea in 
Theology." In this future volume, starting 
from the belief of Jesus' disciples in his res- 
urrection, an attempt will be made to trace 
the evolution of those speculative doctrines 
which have clustered about Jesus, and which 
have occupied so large a place in the thought 
of Christendom. And while the statement 
will in each case be necessarily brief, yet it 
will doubtless be sufficient; for generally a 
description of the main facts respecting their 
origin and growth is a sufficient refutation. 
Many topics closely related to these pages 
will there be discussed, — a fact which will 
explain to the reader that surprising silence 
and apparent want of completeness suggested 
by a casual glance at these chapters. And 
as in this, so in the next volume, the earnest 
effort will be to present a plain and brief 
statement of such facts and suggestions as 
will help toward clearer thought and truer 
life. 

J. H. C. 

Madison, Wis., August, 1888. 



THE MESSIANIC HOPE. 



REFERENCES. 

A. Judaism during the Century before Jesus : 

1. Schiirer, The Jewish People, §§ 22-28. 

2. Kuenen, Religion of Israel, vol. iii. ch. xii. 

3. Stanley, History of the Jewish Church, vol. iii. ch. xlix. 1. 

4. Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire, vol. ii. ch. xi. 

5. Deutsch, Literary Remains; Article i : The Talmud. 

B. General Discussion of the Messianic Hope : 

1. Drummond, The Jewish Messiah. 

2. Schiirer, The Jewish People, § 29. 

3. Oehler, The Messiah : Herzog's Encyclopaedia. 

C. Special References: 

1. The Messianic Ideals of the Hebrew Prophets : 

(i) Noyes, Translation of the Prophets, Introduction, vol. i. 

(2) Smith, The Prophets of Israel, ch. v., vi 

(3) Briggs, Messianic Prophecy, ch. vi.-ix. 

2. The Messianic Hope in the Time of Jesus: 

(i) Hausrath, New Testament Times, vol. ii. pp. 222-242. 

(2) Keim, Jesus of Nazara, vol. i. p. 308, et seq, 

(3) Reuss, Apostolic Age, vol. i. book i, ch. x, 

3. The Rank of the Expected Messiah : 

(i) Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, ch. xlviii.-li. 

(2) Drummond, The Jewish Messiah, book ii. ch. xi. 

(3) Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, vol. i. ch. v. 

4. Messianic Quotations in the New Testament : 
(i) Toy, Quotations in the New Testament. 

(2) Kuenen, The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, ch. 
xiii., xiv. 

5. Important Review Articles : 

(i) National Review, vol. xvi, p. 466; vol. xviii. p. 554. 

(2) Theological Review, vol. vi. p. 516 ; vol. viii. p. i. 

(3) Christian Examiner, vol. Ixxxvii. p. 71. 



THE MESSIANIC HQPE. 

THE rabbis in the time of Jesus used, in 
their study of the Hebrew Scriptures, 
a method of interpretation by which they 
put into the text whatever they wished, with- 
out any particular regard to the meaning of 
the original. The following passage, taken 
from that treatise of the Talmud of Jerusa- 
lem called Berakhoth, illustrates their alle- 
gorical method, and reminds us of that style 
of Biblical interpretation which we all doubt- 
less heard from preachers in our youth: *' It 
is said (Solomon's Song vi. 2), * My beloved 
is gone down into his garden to the beds of 
spices, to feed (his flocks) in the gardens, and 
to gather lilies/ How is it that after speaking 
of one garden it afterwards mentions several? 
This is the interpretation of the verse: Mjy 
beloved, means the Almighty; is gone dow7i 
into his garden^ that is to say, the Universe ; 
to the beds of spices, meaning Israel ; to feed 
{his flocks^ in the gardens^ this means the 
other nations of the earth; and to gather 



1 6 Jesus Brought Back. 

lilies^ these words represent the holy people 
that the Almighty calls away to place them 
with his chosen people." ^ Nothing could be 
more irrational and fruitless than such ex- 
planations, and yet this is a fair example of 
the way the language of the Old Testament 
was twisted this way and that, just as fancy 
might suggest or ingenuity lead. 

Now this allegorical method of interpreta- 
tion passed from the rabbis over into the 
Church; and the early Christian writers in- 
dulged in explanations of Scripture equally 
fanciful and irrational. It was an uncritical 
age, and nothing like a true science of Bib- 
lical interpretation existed; and the point 
where imagination ran wild was the topic of 
Messianic prophecy. Those early Christians 
felt constrained to connect the person and 
ministry of Jesus just as largely as possible 
with the predictions of the Hebrew prophets. 
And this allegorical method enabled them to 
find definite allusions to Jesus in the obscur- 
est texts of those writings. They read into 
the words before them just what the exigen- 
cies of the situation demanded. They found 
Messianic predictions of Jesus everywhere, — 
in passages of dryest historical statement, and 
1 Ch. ii. § 8. 



The Messianic Hope. 1 7 

in passages of the most enigmatical character. 
And this example taken from the Talmud, 
no more absurd than hundreds of passages 
found in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers 
of the second century, shows us how easily 
all this was done. It was a work of pure 
fiction. 

And the extensive Messianic character of 
the Hebrew Scriptures having been estab- 
lished by this allegorical method of interpre- 
tation, the conviction that Jesus was definitely 
foretold in a great many passages of that lit- 
erature descended through the following ages, 
and was shared by those English scholars of 
two and a half centuries ago who made King 
James's version. They believed that Hebrew 
prophecy was full of allusions to the minutest 
incidents of Jesus' life ; and naturally their 
belief in the Messianic character of the Old 
Testament would show through the version 
which they made, especially in all possible 
Messianic passages ; for every such transla- 
tion, whether of Faust or of Job, is colored 
by this personal element. 

Thus these translators, believing that the 
chief object of the Old Testament was to pre- 
dict Jesus, gave its texts a Messianic coloring 
wherever fancy could suggest such a render- 



1 8 Jesus Brought Back. 

ing; and yet this coloring is found upon 
examination to be in a majority of cases a 
false coloring. The passage in Job xix. 25, 
26, is a notable example of the mistransla- 
tions caused by this bias. The true render- 
ing is : — 

*' Yet I know that my Vindicator liveth, 
And will hereafter stand up on the earth ; 
And though with my skin this body be wasted away, 
Yet without my flesh shall I see God.'^ ^ 

The meaning of the passage is simply this : 
that though he wastes away to a mere skele- 
ton, yet before Job dies some one will free 
his character from the false charges brought 
against him by his enemies. Now the trans- 
lators, always intent on finding Messianic 
meanings, interpreted into the text their own 
notion and made it read like a prediction of 
the Messiah and a declaration of belief in a 
bodily resurrection : *^ For I know that my 
redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at 
the latter day upon the earth; and though 
after my skin worms destroy this body, yet 
in my flesh shall I see God." But, as every 
scholar now holds, this is an incorrect trans- 
lation ; and neither in this text nor anywhere 

^ Noyes's Job, p. 64. 



The Messianic Hope. 19 

in the book of Job is there any allusion to a 
Messianic hope, or to a belief in a bodily- 
resurrection. All that Oehler, a conservative 
scholar, can claim for Job is this : '' In it are 
deposited the presuppositions of the hope 
of eternal life/' ^ And Dr. Briggs, one of 
the most eminent Presbyterian scholars in 
America, makes no reference to Job in his 
discussion of Messianic passages.^ 

Another case in point is Genesis xlix. 10. 
The passage reads in our version : '' The 
sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a 
law-giver from between his feet until Shiloh 
come ; '' and *^ Shiloh '' has been understood 
to be only another name for '^ Messiah." So 
that it was claimed that in these words Jacob, 
nearly two thousand years before our era, 
definitely foretold the coming of Jesus. But 
the text was not so understood until the 
sixteenth century, when this notion arose 
from an absurd blunder on the part of Mun- 
ster.^ Dr. Briggs calls this a perfectly unten- 
able opinion, and he translates the passage 
thus : — 

1 Old Testament Theology, p. 564. 

2 Messianic Prophecy. 

3 This passage has reference, says Oehler, to '* the rest 
into which Judah shall enter after victorious conflict." 
— Old Testament Theology, p. 522. 



20 yesus Brought Back. 

** The sceptre will not depart from Judah, 
Nor the ruler's rod from between his feet, 
Until that which belongs to him come, 
And he have the obedience of the peoples." ^ 

This is, then, in reality, no prediction at all, 
being nothing more than a reminiscence of 
an ancient popular conviction that they, the 
Israelites, would some day possess Canaan 
in peace.2 Thus the translators, under the 
guidance of their theological bias, put a Mes- 
sianic reference into every text which could 
be so rendered ; so that there is much more 
in our common version about the Messianic 
hope than in the original. 

Again, the chapter headings make a mod- 
ern theological commentary, which in many 
instances completely misrepresents the teach- 
ing of the Old Testament. They have done 
more than anything else to obscure the 
meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures and to fill 
the common mind with erroneous ideas of 
many of its passages. The translators found, 
as they imagined, certain notions in the body 
of the chapter, and they indicated by these 
chapter headings that such notions are con- 

1 Messianic Prophecy, p. 94. 

2 See also Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, ch. iv. 



The Messianic Hope, 2 1 

tained in that chapter. They were therefore 
put there as guides to lead the reader to in- 
terpret the Bible just as the translators did ; 
and as the uncritical person reads, he under- 
stands the text in the light of these chapter 
headings. He naturally reads into the chap- 
ter what they indicate; but in so doing he 
radically misunderstands the Old Testament. 
In nine cases out of ten there are no Messi- 
anic allusions where the chapter headings 
assert such. So that these modern additions 
or chapter headings, which are no part of the 
original, lead the reader far astray. 

For example: at the head of the second 
chapter of Isaiah, we read, '^ Isaiah prophe- 
sieth the coming of Christ's kingdom." Be- 
low we find that passage which ends thus : — 

" He shall be a judge of the nations, 
And an umpire of many kingdoms ; 
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, 
And their spears into pruning hooks." 

When we look at the connection in which 
this passage stands, we see that the writer 
had reference to the time in which he lived ; 
and that the person described, *' He shall be 
a judge of the nations," is no far-off, mysteri- 
ously born God-man, but Israel's God, Jeho- 



2 2 Jesus Brought Back. 

vah himself. The prophet is simply describing 
what will happen when all the people shall obey 
the Law of God; and he thought that time 
near at hand. There is no warrant whatever 
for the chapter heading ; and the application 
of this passage to Jesus is a mistake. This is 
distinctly admitted by Dr. Briggs, who re- 
marks upon this passage, ^^ It is vain to seek 
for any physical fulfilment of the prediction.'' ^ 

These Messianic chapter headings are espe- 
cially numerous in the Psalms, and are there 
used with as little reason. Psalm xciii. has 
this title: *'The majesty, power, and hoh- 
ness of Christ's kingdom." But that psalm is 
a simple song of praise to Jehovah, without 
the slightest allusion to a Messiah; while it 
is absolutely destitute of the faintest reference 
to a future Saviour. 

It is the opinion of most great scholars, fol- 
lowing De Wette, that none of the Psalms are 
Messianic. There are in them many expres- 
sions of fervid hope ; some of them give utter- 
ance to a sublime confidence in the future of 
Israel ; but it is only a very fanciful and unsci- 
entific interpretation which finds in them any 
description of a personal Messiah whose ad- 
vent is adjourned by the writer to a far-off 
1 Messianic Prophecy, p. 183. 



The Messianic Hope. 23 

future. Even Oehler claims only four as Mes- 
sianic, and these merely in a general way.^ The 
Psalms, then, are not predictions, but either 
popular songs adapted to the service of the 
Second Temple, or compositions especially 
designed for that service ; and the claim that 
they are Messianic rests upon pure fiction.^ 

The fact is that when we read a copy of the 
revised Old Testament, without chapter head- 
ings and marginal references, we are surprised 
at finding so little mention of a Messiah ; and 
when we read that collection of writings, not 
for dogma, but as literature, we are surprised 
at the numerous and explicit contradictions of 
traditional theology therein contained ; while 
we are agreeably surprised at the new truth and 
beauty which we find where all was meaning- 
less when studied as a supernatural revelation. 

Again, this whole subject is confused by the 
present arrangement of the Old Testament 

1 Old Testament Theology, p. 524. 

2 The strongest plea for the Messianic character of the 
Psalms has been made by Alexander, Witness of the Psalms 
to Christ. 

If one will compare this work with Noyes's Translation 
of the Psalms, or with Kuenen's '' The Prophets/' pp. 479 — 
497, he will see upon what shadows the traditional inter- 
pretation depends. 



24 Jesus Brought Back. 

books, which obscures their historic relations 
by putting Leviticus, written in the fifth cen- 
tury B.C., before Deuteronomy, written in the 
seventh ; and Daniel, belonging to the second 
century B.C., before Amos, belonging to the 
eighth. It is therefore impossible to trace 
the historical evolution of the Messianic hope 
with any satisfaction as long as we follow the 
present arrangement, which presents a mass 
of writings thrown together without any re- 
gard to their age. 

Modern scholarship has reached certain 
general conclusions respecting the date of 
various portions of the Old Testament, which 
must be taken into account in this discussion. 
They may be briefly stated thus : — 

1. The oldest collection of Hebrew liter- 
ature proper which we possess comprises 
the writings of the prophets from Amos to 
Ezekiel, covering the period 800 B. C. to 
580 B. C. 

2. The Pentateuch — not the work of Moses 
— which reached its final shape about 444 
B. C, having been built up from many sepa- 
rate works and fragments : the Book of Cove- 
nants, Exodus xxi. i-xxiii. 19, about 900 B.C. ; 
Deuteronomy, about 621 B.C.; the Levitical 
legislation in Numbers and Leviticus about 



The Messianic Hope. 25 

500 B. C, while the narrative portions range 
in age from 800 B. C. to 500 B. C. 

3. The Writings, works like Job, as early 
as 600 B. C. ; histories, like Kings and Samuel, 
about 550 B.C.; prophecies, like Jonah and 
Malachi, about 400 B. C. ; and Psalms scat- 
tered from 600 B. C. to 200 B. C. 

These results in the main are practically 
established. What Kuenen, whose judgment 
is equal, if not superior to that of any other 
living authority, writes respecting the present 
position of scholars with reference to the Pen- 
tateuch, holds good in respect to these con- 
clusions in general : '' Some eminent scholars 
still hold out against the * Grafian hypothe- 
sis,' ^ but it is no longer possible to count its 
supporters or to enumerate seriatim the works 
written in its defence or built upon its assump- 
tions. In setting forth in this treatise, for the 
first time, its complete and systematic criti- 
cal justification I am no longer advocating a 
heresy, but am expounding the received view 
of European critical scholarship." ^ 

If we now bear in mind this general order 
we shall be kept from much confusion in our 
study of this subject. For instance, if we 

1 Essentially the view just stated. 

2 The Hexateuch, p. xxxix. 



26 jfesMS Brought Back. 

find in the stories of the patriarchs given in 
Genesis a Messianic allusion, we will not 
attribute it to the time of Abraham, but re- 
gard it simply as the reflection of a popular 
sentiment which existed in the fifth or sixth 
century B. C, when this tradition became 
fixed in literature. If we find, as some think, 
the Messianic hope in one of the Psalms, we 
will not look upon it as the belief of David, 
but as the belief of Judaism which was founded 
by Ezra late in the fifth century B. C, and of 
which the Psalms are poetical expressions. 
Again, when we read the glowing Messianic 
ideal in Daniel, we must not carry that back 
to the Captivity, but bring it down four cen- 
turies later, to about the year 164 B. C, dur- 
ing the time of the Maccabees. 

These facts, it is evident, compel a radical 
modification of the old notions respecting the 
Messianic hope. It was once a common say- 
ing that the Messiah was definitely predicted 
as early as the time of Abraham, and that 
every chapter at least of the Old Testament 
contains some allusion to Jesus. The truth, 
however, is that the oldest portions of that 
literature which contain any such hope, are 
not earlier than the eighth century B. C. ; 
and the passages which contain unmistakable 



The Messianic Hope. 27 

Messianic meanings, that is, descriptions of 
a personal Messiah, are comparatively few. 
Modern scholarship, therefore, finds but little 
about a personal Messiah in the Old Testa- 
ment, and that little belongs to a compara- 
tively late date. 

There are many passages in the Old Testa- 
ment which are Messianic, if by Messianic 
we simply mean a fervid hope of future glory ; 
but there is no reason whatever for applying 
the term Messianic to these general expres- 
sions of hope. On the other hand, of defi- 
nite descriptions of an anointed king, or 
Messiah, by whom under Jehovah prosperity 
will be brought to Israel, there are at most 
not more than a dozen passages.^ 

The origin of this Messianic hope has been 
made a needlessly difficult problem by pro- 
jecting a late and exalted moral ideal into 
the far-off past, and considering it as appear- 
ing instantaneously among crude conditions 
to which it could have had no relation. And 
from this point of view it has been argued 
that the supernatural must be brought in to 

1 In an exhaustive review of Drummond's '* Jewish Mes- 
siah," a very able writer made this statement: *' It — the 
Messianic hope — was never an essential part of the na- 
tional, or Hebrew, creed.'* — The Athenaeum, 1878, p. 118. 



28 yesus Brought Back. 

account for its appearance. But in this way 
we create a fictitious difficulty, which, when 
removed, leaves no necessity for the super- 
natural. If we look upon this hope at its 
beginning as the simple, natural thing that it 
was ; if we cease to carry back into the eighth 
century B. C. what belongs to the second; if 
we attend strictly to facts rather than to tradi- 
tion, — we shall experience no great difficulty 
in explaining what we find, and we shall have 
no reason to call in the supernatural. 

A reference to Israel's history for two cen- 
turies before the rise of this hope will help 
us to clearer thought. After many ages of 
tribal jealousies and incessant warfare with 
the old occupants of the land, the Hebrews 
achieved national unity under David. The 
energies of the people thus stimulated and 
organized created the glories of Solomon's 
reign. But such sudden prosperity is danger- 
ous, and after Solomon came strife and rebel- 
lion ; to which was added successive invasions 
that brought disorders, immoralities, and su- 
perstitions, until Israel seemed on the brink 
of ruin. Then occurred what has so often 
occurred among other peoples, — the noble 
remnant, the faithful and unconquered few, 
rose up to denounce their disloyal brethren 



The Messianic Hope. 29 

and to feed the fires of patriotism.^ Inspired 
by the memory of their former glory and 
moved by the surrounding desolation, they 
went to work to repair the fallen fortunes of 
their nation. A very natural thing to do ; a 
movement which has had its parallel among 
almost all peoples. The only unusual feat- 
ure here was the peculiar character which 
this movement assumed. 

This effort at national regeneration marks 
the rise of Hebrew prophecy in the eighth 
century B. C, which began with Amos and 
culminated in Isaiah. 

These Hebrew prophets were thus essen- 
tially earnest patriots who yearned and la- 
bored for a happy and united fatherland ; 
and their peculiarity consisted in the moral 
and religious quality of their patriotism. 
Their doctrine may be summed up in three 
short sentences : Jehovah is Infinite Holiness 
and only demands righteousness of man; 
Israel is especially Jehovah^s people; and 
Israel shall be glorified when its people turn 
from their sins. Thus they interpreted God 
in terms of moral law, and they insisted that 
only obedience to moral law could glorify 
the nation. Their watchword was, Happi- 

"^ Drummond, The Jewish Messiah, p. 179. 



30 yesus Brought Back. 

ness belongeth unto holiness.^ Thus their 
faith, on its religious side, was an intensely- 
ethical monotheism. 

These prophets were not chiefly or largely 
predictors of far-ofi' future events. Fortune- 
telling and soothsaying were the business of 
the old religious order which preceded them ; 
but this new prophetic movement, beginning 
with Amos, was a radical departure from that 
superstitious practice ; and it aimed primarily 
at popular instruction in righteousness. 

It is a significant fact that this position is 
that taken by such historians as Duncker, 
who, in describing the Prophets of Israel, 
uses this language: *'They are no longer 
soothsayers and seers; they do not predict 
any more; they do not announce definite 
facts ; they only know what will and must be 
the consequences of the sinful life of the peo- 
ple; they proclaim a great judgment; they 
declare what must be done to turn aside the 
wrath of Jehovah." ^ 

These new prophets differed most radically 
from the old school by paying little attention 

1 Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, ch- i., ii. 

2 History of Antiquity, vol. iii. ch. ii. See also Rob- 
ertson Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, 
ch. X. 



The Messianic Hope. 3 1 

to prediction and by giving their energies to 
moral teaching. 

Even the predictions upon which these 
prophets ventured were warnings rather than 
foreteliings; they were simply the readings 
or interpretations of moral conditions : Obey 
the moral law and you shall prosper ; follow 
heathen gods and ruin will come. And very 
many of their predictions of this character 
were never fulfilled. Notable examples of 
the non-fulfilment of such prophecies are, 
Isaiah's prediction respecting Damascus (ch. 
xvii.) ; Jeremiah's prediction respecting the 
conquest of Egypt (ch. xliii.) ; and Ezekiel's 
prediction against Tyre (ch. xxvi.-xxvii.).^ 

Theirs, then, was the hope of a good time 
coming, interpreted as a reign of righteous- 
ness; their own king would rule in Jerusa- 
lem; the land would be full of plenty; and 
all the peoples of the earth would be at 
peace. They did not, however, apply to this 
hope or to that time the term Messianic. 
That deliverance of Israel would be brought 
about, not by a Messiah, but by Jehovah 
himself. The anointed king, when mentioned, 
was not pictured as the agent, but as a part 

1 For a full discussion of the subject, see Kuenen, The 
Prophets, ch. v. 



32 Jesus Brought Back. 

of the fulfilment of that hope. They spoke 
of that time as the day of Jehovah, — the 
reign of righteousness. Bleek, a conserva- 
tive scholar, states the case thus: *' In most 
of the predictions this [salvation] is ascribed 
to Jehovah himself, the Divine Defender of 
Israel, without distinct prominence being 
given to any human deliverer." ^ This hope 
was therefore something very natural, — an 
intensely ethical patriotism. 

And yet it assumed various forms in the 
writings of these different prophets. Amos, 
780 B. C, prophesied an ideal blessedness, 
but made no mention of a king or Mes- 
siah. The work is to be done directly by 
Jehovah : ^ — 

" Behold the days come, saith Jehovah, 
That the plower shall draw near to the reaper, 
And the treader of grapes to the sower of the seed ; 
And the mountains shall drop new wine, 
And all the hills shall melt. 

I will bring back the captives of my people Israel, 
And they shall build the desolate cities, and shall in- 
habit them ; 
And they shall plant vineyards, and drink their wine ; 
They shall also make gardens, and eat their fruit." * 

1 Introduction to the Old Testament, § 191. 
^ Drummond, The Jewish Messiah, p. 186. 

2 Amos ix. 13, 14. 



The Messianic Hope. 33 

Hosea, 750 B. c, agrees with Amos in sim- 
ply describing an ideal blessedness, with no 
reference to a king. The work is Jehovah's 
alone : — 

" I will be as the dew to Israel; 
He shall blossom as the lily . . . 
And his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, 
And his fragrance as Lebanon." ^ 

Micah, 720 B. C, adds to this picture, as a 
part of Jehovah's gift, a ** ruler in Israel," 
and also describes his particular work : **Thus 
shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when 
he Cometh into our land, and treadeth in our 
borders." (Ch. v. 6.) 

Isaiah, 710 B.C., also introduces the idea of 
a king, but as a part of the fulfilment rather 
than as the agent of that ** day of Jehovah." 
Yet, unlike Micah's, Isaiah's king is to be a 
king of peace, who is thus described : — 

" For to us a child is born. 
To us a son is given, 

And the government shall be upon his shoulder. 
And he shall be called 
Wonderful, counsellor, mighty potentate, 
Everlasting father, prince of peace ; 
His dominion shall be great. 
And peace without end shall rest upon 
The throne of David and his kingdom, 

1 Hosea xiv. 5, 6. 
3 



34 Jesus Brought Back. 

To fix and establish it 

Through justice and equity, 

Henceforth and forever. 

The zeal of Jehovah of hosts will do this!*'* ^ 

Now, as Robertson Smith remarks, " Isa- 
iah's ideal is only the perfect performance 
of the ordinary duties of monarchy/' ^ Isa- 
iah makes no reference to a God-Man who 
will redeem mankind by mystical sacrifice. 
Indeed, Isaiah makes comparatively little 
mention of this king; and in his later proph- 
ecies ceases altogether to speak of him. 

A century later Jeremiah, 600 B. C, mus- 
ing upon the calamities of his people, uttered 
this hope : — 

" Behold, the days are coming, saith Jehovah, 
When I will raise up from David a righteous Branch, 
And a king shall reign and prosper, 
And shall maintain justice and equity in the land." ^ 

Jeremiah evidently lays more stress upon 
the work and Davidic descent of this king 
than any of the other prophets, but, as in 
Isaiah's portraiture, his work is the '* ordinary 
duties of monarchy ; '' and in a subsequent 

^ Isaiah ix. 6, 7. 

2 The Prophets of Israel, p. 306. See also Noyes, 
Prophets, vol. 1. p. xxxi ; and Wellhausen, History of Is- 
rael, p. 416. 

^ Jeremiah xxiii. 5. 



The Messianic Hope. 35 

passage (ch. xxxiii. 17) he goes on to explain 
that he did not have reference so much to a 
single king as to a perpetual succession of 
kings. 

From this brief review of Hebrew prophecy 
from 800 B. c. to 600 B. C. we are led to sev- 
eral very important conclusions : — 

1. The chief element of their hope was 
their expectation of the complete restoration 
of the Israelitish nationality, — a Hebrew pa- 
triotism lighted up by faith in Jehovah and 
directed toward righteousness. 

2. Theirs was more the hope of a glorious 
time than of a particular king. When the 
king enters it is as a part of that glorious 
time, and his duties are purely human. 

3. They looked for that restoration in the 
immediate future. The character of their 
hope is well described by Schurer: ''The 
older Messianic hope virtually moves within 
the boundary of the then present circum- 
stances of the world, and is nothing else than 
the hope of a better future for the nation^ ^ 

4. Their most explicit predictions were 
again and again doomed to disappointment. 
The vanquisher of the Assyrian pictured by 
Micah never appeared ; the Prince of Peace 

1 The Jewish People, vol. ii. p. 129. 



36 JesMS Brought Back. 

whom Isaiah predicted never ruled in Jeru- 
salem ; ^ the endless succession of Davidic 
kings prophesied by Jeremiah finds a melan- 
choly commentary in the mournful history of 
the Jews. 

5. They never used the word ** Messiah " 
in that special sense which we are accustomed 
to associate with it, but simply as an ordinary 
title of the human king whom Jehovah had 
or would set over Israel. The word with the 
article, *' The Messiah,'* is not an old Testa- 
ment phrase at all ; and they never described 
Israel's exaltation as a Messianic time. In 
the words of one of the greatest of Biblical 
scholars : *' It is asserted that ' anointed ' 
(mashiach, messiah) was the universally re- 
ceived appellation of the approaching king 
of David's family; but this assertion is un- 
trae: no one trace of any such use of this 
word can be pointed out anywhere in the 
Old Testament." 2 

6. Their hope of a glorious future was 
unique only as Greek genius was unique; 
and we no more need supernatural agency 
to explain the one than the other. 

1 Unless we apply his language to Hezekiah, in which 
case it is historical rather than predictive. 

2 Kuenen, The Prophets, p. 271. 



The Messianic Hope. 37 

To find the next exhibition of any such 
hope we must come a century this side of 
Jeremiah and plant ourselves among the col- 
onists at Babylon, which was a '* forcing nurs- 
ery rather than a prison cell '' to the exiles. 
There we find a great spiritual genius, the La- 
ter-Isaiah, or the Evangelical Prophet, whose 
writings are preserved in the last thirty-seven 
chapters of the book called Isaiah. The dual 
character of this book and the exilic origin 
of the latter half — first taught as long ago 
as Aben Ezra — is now universally accepted 
as one of the great triumphs of modern criti- 
cism. The language of Bleek expresses the 
opinion of critics : *' These prophecies do not 
belong to Isaiah or his age.''^ The author 
portrays a beautiful and sublime hope; but 
he neither makes mention of a prince of the 
house of David, nor of a personal deliverer. 
** Times were altogether changed, and David's 
line had sunk too low for him to cherish any 
hopes of its restoration.'*^ Instead, he pic- 
tures his people under the form of a servant, 
who by patience, long-suff*ering, fidelity, and 
loyalty glorify God and win the nations to 
the service of Jehovah : — 

1 Introduction to the Old Testament, § 198. 

2 Knappert, Religion of Israel, p. 151. 



38 yestis Brought Back. 

*' Behold my servant whom I uphold, 
My chosen, in whom my soul delighteth ; 
I have put my spirit upon him ; 
He shall cause law to go forth to the nations. 
He shall not cry aloud, nor lift up his voice, 
Nor cause it to be heard in the street. 
The bruised reed shall he not break. 
And the glimmering flax shall he not quench ; 
He shall send forth law according to truth. 
He shall not fail, nor become weary, 
Until he shall have established justice in the earth, 
And distant nations shall wait for his law." ^ 

That this '* servant'' is an idealization of the 
Hebrew people rather than a personal Mes- 
siah, a position long held by advanced schol- 
ars, is now admitted by such men as Dr. 
Briggs, whose judgment is thus expressed : 
*'The prophet presents by personification the 
ideal Israel, the pious nucleus of the nations 
as the Messianic agent." ^ This being the 
case, the prophecy can in no sense be a pre- 
diction of Jesus. This servant is represented 
as suffering; but these sufferings are not rep- 
resented as a propitiation or as an expia- 
tory satisfaction, but simply as an inevitable 
part of that lot which falls to every ser- 

1 Isaiah, xlii. 1-4. 

2 Messianic Prophecy, p. 346. See also Bleek, Intro- 
duction to the Old Testament, § 205. 



The Messianic Hope. 39 

vant of God; and they are redemptive only 
in the sense that a mother's self-sacrifice is 
redemptive.^ 

Now, after the Later-Isaiah, came three 
centuries of silence during which this Messi- 
anic hope was very faint indeed. The de- 
scendants of the exiles returned to Judea; 
and Ezra organized them into a church about 
444 B. C. They were now at work building 
the fabric of Judaism, which was an ecclesias- 
tical order rather than a political state. Their 
hope had taken a new direction ; and it was 
as students of the Law that they now expected 
to redeem the world. The words of Ewald 
are : ** In reality the hope of a Messiah in the, 
stricter sense often grew very faint during 
these centuries ; and in the mere wisdom of 
this time the more general hope of Israel evea 
had often no longer practically any place, as, 
the Book of Ecclesiastes shows." ^ 

Only once more did this peculiar form of 
patriotism rise to a fervid hope before our era. 
Under the hateful and hated rule of Antio- 
chus the Jewish heart was wrought upon until 

1 See article in " Unitarian Review," vol. x. p. 580, for 
an admirable but brief description of Scholten's views on 
this subject. 

2 History of Israel, vol. vi. p. 107. 



40 yesus Brought Back. 

a national enthusiasm rushed forth like a 
mighty torrent and uttered its hope in the 
visions of Daniel, about 164 B. C.^ Assuming 
the name of an ancient hero, and transporting 
himself to the distant past, the writer put his 
burning thoughts into a series of symbols 
which pointed to his own day as the consum- 
mation of history and the exaltation of Israel. 
This writing was a patriotic address made di- 
rectly to his countrymen to inspire them with 
heroism and a boundless hope in their trying 
circumstances. The author describes their 
deliverance as coming from Jehovah himself; 
and he symbolizes this consummation as the 
descent of ^^ a,'* not '^the,'* '^ son of man." 
Scholars are now practically agreed that this 
phrase, ^' son of man " does not refer to a 
personal Messiah, but to the people Israel; 
so that there is nothing in Daniel which de- 
scribes a future Redeemer, or that can be 
applied to Jesus of Nazareth. Even Oehler 
admits that this view ** cannot be decidedly 

1 A strong and conservative argument for the late date 
of Daniel is given by Bleek, Introduction to the Old Tes- 
tament, §§ 254-269. See also Stanley, History of the Jew- 
ish Church, vol. iii. p. 77. Schiirer, one of the ablest Ger- 
man scholars, in treating of Daniel, does not even argue 
the question, but takes the later date for granted. The 
Jewish People, vol. iii. p. 49 et seq. 



The Messianic Hope. 41 

refuted/'^ The Apocalypse of Daniel is, 
therefore, simply a highly poetical picture 
of certain great historical cataclysms about 
to occur, as the writer thought, in which 
Jehovah himself would be the sole actor 
and out of which Israel would emerge in 
triumph to shine as the brightness of the 
firmament. 

We come now to the Messianic ideal as 
held during the century before Jesus. And 
here we must make a distinction between the 
Messianic hope, the hope of great glory for 
Israel in a general way, and the Messiah- 
hope, the expectation of a Davidic king who 
would restore the political independence and 
power of Israel.^ The one was the ideal of 
a kingdom of heaven considered as a reign 
of righteousness ; the other the expectation 
of a temporal king who would re-establish 
the national glory. In the century under 
discussion, among the more enlightened 
Jews, dwelling abroad and living in Pales- 
tine, it was this Messianic hope which was 
cherished. A ministry of enlightenment 

1 Old Testament Theology, p. 529. See also Schiirer, 
The Jewish People, vol. ii. p. 137. 

2 This distinction is made by Kuenen, Religion of Israel, 
vol, iii. p. 260. 



42 Jestis Brought Back. 

through the moral exaltation of Israel, rather 
than a regal dynasty, was thus the ideal 
and hope of educated Jews at the birth of 
Christianity. 

The culture of Judaism about the time of 
Jesus found expression in two remarkable 
men, — Hillel and Philo, one the glory of 
Jerusalem, and the other the ornament of 
Alexandria. Hillel was the greatest of the 
Pharisees, a man memorable for the gentle- 
ness of his spirit and the purity of his life. 
And it is a significant fact that while Hillel 
cherished large hopes for his people, nei- 
ther he nor his followers expected a per- 
sonal Messiah. A learned rabbi of our own 
time and country writes : '' The expectation 
of a coming Messiah was not a doctrine of 
the Hillelites." ^ Philo, who became the in- 
terpreter of Greek philosophy to his people, 
also spiritualized this Messianic hope and 
seems never to have mentioned a personal 
Messiah ^ He shared in the ideal hopes of 
his race ; but he did not connect the fulfilment 
of those hopes with any supreme personage. 
There were even rabbis who denounced as a 

1 Isaac Wise, History of the Hebrews' Second Common- 
wealth, p. 265. 

2 Bigg, Christian Platonists of Alexandria, p. 25. 



The Messianic Hope. 43 

superstition this expectation of a coming 
Messiah.^ These facts warrant the conclusion 
that the expectation of a coming Messiah 
was not a doctrine commonly taught in the 
centres of Jewish learning in the age preced- 
ing Jesus. 

But among the common people, especially 
in times of calamity and oppression, we find 
a different state of affairs. They cherished 
the Messiah-hope, — a strong and vivid expec- 
tation of a personal deliverer. The miseries 
of the time pressed more heavily upon them ; 
and uneducated people generally have exag- 
gerated notions of what can be accomplished 
by a single person in the way of redress and 
reform. The popular idea of a Messiah, or 
son of David, varied a great deal, and was, 
generally speaking, very indefinite and misty; 
but it was a very real and powerful expecta- 
tion among certain classes. It was not a clear 
and reasoned conviction, but a pervasive and 
deep-seated political fanaticism, ready to burst 
into flame under exciting and provoking con- 
ditions. It was fed by the study of three writ- 
ings, Daniel, the Sibylline Oracles, the Book 
of Enoch ; ^ works produced in the second 

^ Drummond, The Jewish Messiah, p. 272. 

2 For a full discussion of this pre-Christian apocalyptic 



44 yesus Brought Back. 

century B. C, and all of that marvellous sym- 
bolic character calculated to fire the popular 
imagination. The masses caught up all the 
phrases in these works, like the ** son of 
man " in Daniel, and used them as literal 
descriptions of the coming Messiah. This 
popular, political Messiah-hope often gave 
rise to outbreaks against the government, 
and found a champion in the party known 
as the Zealots. But it is a great mistake to 
consider this the universal or even the com- 
mon Messianic ideal; or to assert that all 
the Jews at this time looked for a coming 
Messiah, or held a low and sensual view of 
the Messianic time. 

The Messianic belief of educated Jews, then, 
was the ideal of a diviner society, something 
like the dream of French rationalists respect- 
ing universal progress ; but there was also a 
popular and political hope which pointed to 
a personal Messiah, — a hope something like 
that which smouldered so long in down-trod- 
den Poland. And both forms of this expec- 
tation were powerful and important factors in 
the rise and progress of Christianity. 

A few words must be devoted to the rank 

literature, see Schiirer, " The Jewish People ; " or Drum- 
mond, "The Jewish Messiah.'* 



The Messianic Hope. 45 

and work of this expected Messiah. Writers 
like the Later-Isaiah, the author of Daniel, 
Hillel, Philo, and others, who held the Mes- 
sianic hope, who cherished an expectation 
of the moral exaltation and ministry of Israel 
as a holy people, and who thought of the 
nation itself as the Messianic One, the Ser- 
vant of Jehovah, or Son of Man, — they, of 
course, looked to God alone as the sole 
author of that coming glory and gladness. 
And this was the most prominent thought, 
not only of the ancient prophets, but of the 
educated classes in Jesus' time. And having 
no doctrine of a personal Messiah, they knew 
nothing of his rank or work. 

But those who expected a personal Messiah 
believed in his exalted humanity and nothing 
more. In the words of Ewald, they believed 
that he would be the highest model of a per- 
fected human life.^ The idea of a God-man, 
such as is described in the creeds, is absolute- 
ly foreign to the Jewish mind, and is nowhere 
found in the Hebrew prophecies. Where our 
version makes Isaiah call the expected king, 
** mighty God," even Dr. Briggs admits that 
it ought to read, '' divine hero." ^ The term 

1 History of Israel, vol. vi. p. no. 

2 Messianic Prophecy, p. 200. 



46 Jesus Brought Back. 

Immanuel, " with us is God," is used by Isa- 
iah as the name of a child about to be born ; 
never as the name of the expected king ; and 
it was never understood by the Jews to have 
a Messianic import.^ When Jeremiah named 
the expected son of David, who would be, ac- 
cording to his expectation, their victorious 
and glorious king, ''Jehovah is our righteous- 
ness,'* he simply used a method which every 
Israelite practised in naming his children. It 
was a common orientalism, which meant no 
divine rank or supernatural mission. 

There are three English scholars who, more 
than any others, are entitled to speak upon 
this question; and w^e will venture the ap- 
pearance of being pedantic by quoting their 
conclusions. 

Davidson's words are, '' It is impossible to 
discover a distinct vestige of the belief among 
the Jews that he (the Messiah) was God or 
truly divine." 2 

Drummond, after a careful study of all the 
Apocryphal and related literature, declares, 
*' We have no certain traces of a supernatural 
or pre-existent Messiah." ^ 

1 Smith, *' Prophets of Israel," p. 272. 

2 Theological Review, July, 1870. 

3 The Jewish Messiah, p. 292. 



The Messianic Hope. 47 

And Westcott, a conservative scholar, in 
writing of the Jewish idea of a Messiah up to 
the time of Jesus, makes this statement : "■ The 
essentially divine nature of the Messiah was 
not acknowledged." ^ 

The testimony of Oehler is similar: ''Not 
even in the oldest Targums can the doctrine 
of the superhuman dignity of the Messiah be 
found." 2 

Perhaps the most decisive evidence, how- 
ever, is the statement which Justin Martyr, 
writing about A. D. 150, attributes to Trypho, 
his antagonist: '' For when you say that this 
Christ existed as a divinity before the ages, 
then that he submitted to be born and be- 
come man, yet that he is not man of man, 
this [assertion] appears to me to be not 
merely paradoxical, but also foolish. . . . 
For we all expect that Messiah will be a man 
[born] of men." ^ Here both pre-existence 
and miraculous birth are represented as non- 
Jewish views of the Messiah. It is significant 
that Edersheim, after searching through the 
Talmud with a mind bent on finding some 

1 Introduction to the Study of the Gospels : Jewish 
Doctrine of Messiah, ch. ii. 

2 Herzog, article " Messiah." See also Schiirer, The 
Jewish People, vol. ii. p. 159 et seq. 

3 Dialogue with Trypho, ch. xlviii.-xlix. 



48 Jesus Brought Back. 

evidence of the kind, is compelled to own that 
no such idea as that of the divinity of the 
Messiah can be found in that collection.^ 

Thus the proof is absolute that the Jews 
who did believe in a personal Messiah never 
ascribed to him divine attributes or a super- 
human nature. Moreover, these same peo- 
ple, in their conception of the work or mission 
of the Messiah, never went beyond the belief 
in the glorification of Israel as a people and 
the conversion of the Gentiles to their Law. 
There was much that was carnal in their hope, 
and yet there was much more that was noble 
and spiritual. Their expectation was, not that 
the Messiah would abolish the Law, — the 
doctrine of Paul which made him so hateful 
to his countrymen, — but that he would exalt 
it and make it universal. 

It is a significant fact, seldom noted, that 
all the allusions to suff"ering occur in connec- 
tion with the Messianic hope, — that expecta- 
tion which did not imply a personal agent, 
but which looked toward an ideal society. 
The people Israel, as a Messianic servant, is 
pictured as suff'ering, but never the personal 
Messiah, the expected king. The image of 

1 Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, vol. i. pp. 171, 
179. 



The Messianic Hope. 49 

the personal Messiah was ahvays that of a 
glorious and victorious king, with whom it 
would be impossible to connect the idea of 
suffering. So pain and dishonor are never 
associated with the anticipations of a personal 
Deliverer. Deutsch remarks : ** All the places 
where suffering and misery appear to be the 
lot forecast to the Anointed, it is Israel to 
whom the passage is referred by the Tar- 
gums."^ This fact made it difficult for 
Christians in early times to convince Jews 
that the lowly and suffering Jesus was the 
Messiah. In all that was written by the early 
Church Fathers in controversy with the Jews, 
it is plain that Christians felt this difficulty 
keenly, and the forced analogies and whim- 
sical arguments to which they resorted show 
how little they could find in Hebrew Script- 
ure and Jewish thought to support the notion 
of a suffering Messiah, which was the charac- 
ter they felt obliged to give Jesus. 

And not only is the ideal of the personal 
Messiah absolutely free, in both Old Testa- 
ment and Rabbinic literature, from all associ- 
ations of suffering, the personal Messiah is 
never pictured as engaged in any priestly 
office; he is never represented as an expia- 

1 Literary Remains, p. 373. 
4 



50 Jesus Brought Back. 

tion of his people's sins ; his ministry is never 
called a propitiation or satisfaction of Divine 
justice. This Oehler strangely denies, claim- 
ing that the prophets picture the Messiah as 
a sufferer who atones for his people's sins. 
But he is unable to produce a single definite 
text in support of his assertion, as any one 
who consults his pages will see.^ 

But the writers of the New Testament did 
apply these Messianic allusions respecting 
suffering to Jesus of Nazareth ; yet in every 
case, when we turn to the original, we find 
that the Old Testament passage refers to 
Israel as a people rather than to a personal 
Messiah; so that the Christian writers mis- 
applied all such texts. Indeed, in quoting 
the Old Testament, they followed the false 
method current among the rabbis in their day, 
— a method which put into the text whatever 
the writer wanted to find there. Therefore 
the allusions of the prophets to the sufferings 
of Israel as the people of God, the servant 
of Jehovah, contained in those Messianic 
ideals without a personal leader, — these the 
New Testament writers applied to Jesus with- 
out a particle of reason. And upon their 
manner of interpretation Toy remarks, their 
1 Old Testament Theology, p. 532. 



The Messianic Hope. 5 1 

'' method of interpretation cannot be called 
legitimate." ^ 

And in this connection it is interesting to 
note that, when carefully examined, not one 
of the Old Testament passages quoted in the 
New Testament as a direct prediction of 
Jesus, is correctly used, or can bear the inter- 
pretation thus put upon it. A few of these 
cases may well be briefly examined : In Mat- 
thew ii. 15, the author quotes Hosea xi. i, 
** Out of Egypt I called my son,'' as the pre- 
diction of an incident in Jesus' life ; but when 
we turn to the original we find no reference 
to the future, but rather to a past event in 
the nation's life. The application of the quo- 
tation is absolutely unwarranted. The writer 
of the Fourth Gospel quotes from Psalm xxii. 
the following: ''They divide my garments 
among them and on my clothing do they cast 
lots," as a definite prediction of what the sol- 
diers did with Jesus' garments at the crucifix- 
ion. Yet the Psalmist here made no reference 
to the future, but spoke simply of what was 
then happening to himself. When carefully 
examined all the passages of the Old Testa- 
ment referred to Jesus as Messianic predic- 
tions by the New Testament writers are found 
^ Quotations in the New Testament, p. xxvii. 



52 Jesus Brought Back. 

to have been similarly misapplied. The gen- 
eral conclusion which we reach, then, is this : 
that it is impossible to find in the Old Tes- 
tament any true description or definite pre- 
diction of the Personal Agent who appears 
in the New, — a conclusion which may seem 
startling; which indeed is contrary to the 
claims and necessities of Orthodox theology ; 
but which nevertheless is indorsed by eminent 
Biblical scholars generally.^ 

Now it is evident that no one person could 
be the fulfilment of all those Messianic ideals. 
The warlike king, of Micah; the peaceful 
prince, of Isaiah ; the righteous branch, of 
Jeremiah ; the son of man from heaven, of 
Daniel; the just king, of Zechariah; and 
the wrathful prince, of Ezekiel, — these could 
not all be combined in one individual. No 
historical person could be all that Hebrew 
prophets had predicted respecting the Mes- 
siah, because the predictions are contradic- 
tory. But although Jesus was not such a 
Messiah as the prophets described, or as the 
Jews expected, yet this general Messianic 
expectation did much to shape his ministry 
and clothe his person with authority. Every 

1 " The New Testament Christ is another than the Mes- 
siah of the Old Testament." — Kuenen, Prophets, p. 510. 



The Messianic Hope. 53 

great character must work in connection with 
some great sentiment. Every great leader 
must somehow enter into and possess the 
popular imagination. This hope had popu- 
larized a circle of expressive phrases ; it had 
created an expectant enthusiasm ready to act 
when called upon ; it had prepared the com- 
mon mind in readiness for the planting of 
great doctrines ; it had fashioned an ideal 
which waited for fulfilment; it had produced 
an atmosphere favorable to certain great spir- 
itual changes. A great reservoir full of hope, 
enthusiasm, and religious sentiment was at 
the service of any one who could wisely use 
it. Thus Jesus found mighty spiritual forces 
at hand prepared for action ; a zeal ready to 
act when called upon^ an atmosphere sug- 
gestive of greatness ; a throne waiting for an 
occupant; a glowing sentiment prepared to 
serve. This Messianic ideal supplied Jesus 
with a substantial platform and with indis- 
pensable agencies ; and without these auxilia- 
ries his person would have received less 
attention and his words would have produced 
less impression than they did, — a fact forci- 
bly stated by Baur: '* Had not the Messianic 
idea, the idea in which Jewish national hopes 
had their profoundest expression, fixed itself 



54 Jesus Brought Back. 

on the person of Jesus, and caused him to be 
regarded as the Messiah who had come for 
the redemption of his people, and in whom 
the promise to the fathers was fulfilled, the 
belief in him could never have had a power 
of such far-reaching influence in history. It 
was in the Messianic idea that the spiritual 
contents of Christianity were clothed on with 
the concrete form in which it could enter on 
the path of historical development/' ^ 

It was Jesus' task to give this ideal a new 
and nobler interpretation, and to direct these 
agencies toward larger and humaner ends. 
He had to work with certain Messianic mate- 
rials, without which doubtless he could have 
done but little ; and yet he built these mate- 
rials into a doctrine of his own and made them 
the instruments of a new spirit. Jesus saw 
that the sword could accomplish nothing; he, 
therefore, treading in the footsteps of the 
nobler spirits of his race, gave the old hope 
a moral and spiritual interpretation which was 
the only fulfilment possible. He stood for 
all that was highest in that hope and added 
to it his own personality. 

1 Church History, vol. i. p. 38. 



HOW THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN. 



REFERENCES. 

A. Best General Works on the Origin and Character 

OF THE Gospels : 

1. Davidson, Introduction to the New Testament. 

2. Reuss, History of the New Testament, vol. i. §§ 163-226. 

3. Keim, Jesus of Nazara, vol. i. 

B. Summaries of Modern Scholarship: 

1. Holtzmann, Protestant Commentary, vol. i. 

2. Abbott, The Gospels : in Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

3. Chad wick, The Bible of To-day: Eighth Lecture. 

C. Special References: 

1 . The authorship of the Fourth Gospel : 
(i) Tayler, The Fourth Gospel. 

(2) Supernatural Religion, Part III. 

2. The Legendary Element in the Gospels: 

(i) Hooykaas, Bible for Learners, vol. iii. ch. i.-vi. 
(2) Greg, Creed of Christendom, ch. vi.-ix. 

3. The Discrepancies in. the Gospels: 

(i) Strauss, Life of Jesus, §§ 21-24, 53~59? 108-110. 

(2) Giles, Christian Records, ch. xvi.-xlvi. 

(3) Keim, Jesus of Nazara, vol. iii. division ii. 

4. The Sayings of Jesus as used by the Early Writers: 
(i) Supernatural Rehgion, Part II. 

(2) Sanday, Gospels in the Second Century, ch. iv.-vi. 

5. The Religious Uses of the Gospels still Possible : 
(i) Hedge, Ways of the Spirit, ch. xii. 

(2) Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, ch. vi. 

(3) Abbott, Oxford Sermons, Introduction. 

(4) Picton, Eclectic Uses of the Gospels, Modern Review, 

vol. ii. 



HOW THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN. 

THE Bible of the primitive Church was 
not the New Testament, but the He- 
brew Scriptures. Paul in his missionary 
journeys. carried no written Gospels. When 
Peter preached at Antioch he did not read 
from the Sermon on the Mount, for it was not 
then written. The original church at Jerusa- 
lem, during its forty years' existence until 
the fall of that city, never possessed a copy 
of the Gospels such as we know. Even the 
followers of the Apostles themselves, who 
built up the churches in Corinth, in Ephesus, 
in Philippi, — such men as Apollos and Tim- 
othy, — used no written accounts of Jesus' 
life. The new faith was spread through 
Asia Minor, along the African coast, through 
Greece, and even to Rome, before any me- 
morial of Jesus had been written. As late as 
the year lOO, very few churches possessed 
any such book as our Gospels ; and the work 
of the Christian missionary and the creation 
of new churches went on without any refer- 



58 JesMS Brought Back. 

ence to such written documents. In those 
years, and long afterwards, people depended 
upon tradition, oral reports, what had been 
handed down by word of mouth, for their 
knowledge of Jesus and his teaching. 

While the immediate disciples of Jesus, 
those who had been with and heard him, 
were living, the need of written accounts 
would not be felt. People rather hear some 
companion tell the wondrous story of Jesus 
than read it. And as his disciples expected 
his reappearance hourly, they saw no neces- 
sity for writing anything about him. Men 
like Peter, who looked daily for the com- 
ing of Jesus and the end of the world, could 
of course have no interest in writing out 
a memoir of their master to serve future 
ages; for what need of a memoir when Jesus 
himself would be there. Thus all of Jesus' 
immediate disciples went down to their graves 
without attempting any extended account of 
their beloved Messiah; and so far as we 
know, only one, Matthew, even wrote any 
record of Jesus' life or teaching; and what 
he composed was a brief collection of Jesus' 
sayings, similar to what we know as the Ser- 
mon on the Mount. 

The first Christian presentation, or preach- 



How the Gospels were Written. 59 

ing, of Christ did not aim to give an account 
of Jesus' life or teaching, but to prove his 
Messiahship, his fulfilment of prophecy as 
then understood; thus the source of that 
preaching was not written Gospels, but per- 
sonal knowledge. And the chief apostles, as 
they went about, spoke what they remem- 
bered of Jesus* words and works ; and es- 
pecially those things which identified him 
with the Messianic hope. The people whom 
they instructed repeated this message to their 
converts; and so on, until an oral tradition 
was formed, — that is, a body of well-known 
accounts of what Jesus had said and done. 
But this tradition, or common fund of infor- 
mation, came in time to assume somewhat 
different shape in different parts of the Church. 
For the immediate disciples of Jesus and their 
converts were scattered abroad ; so that each 
to some extent gave the gospel to a special 
locality. And as the memories of each re- 
specting Jesus naturally and inevitably dif- 
fered from those of all the others, because 
they were not all equally impressed with the 
same occurrence, therefore it came about 
that the gospel as told by any one person 
contained parables and wonders which w^ere 
absent from the accounts given by his co- 



6o Jesus Brought Back. 

workers. As this gospel, or the oral tradi- 
tion, would be retold in his neighborhood 
as he gave it, and as the same thing would 
occur in other places where the other dis- 
ciples labored, it came about also that the 
gospel-tradition, as known in various locali- 
ties, consisted of different series of incidents 
and teachings, and also of different versions 
of the same incidents and teachings ; for no 
two men ever give exactly the same account 
of the same event. 

The state of affairs was somewhat like this : 
As the church in Damascus and the church 
in Antioch had received the gospel from dif- 
ferent disciples, each possessed the gospel- 
tradition in a distinct form. The Antioch 
tradition, we may suppose, contained the 
parable of the leaven, which was unknown 
at Damascus; while it did not contain the 
parable of the talents, which was known at Da- 
mascus. Moreover, at Antioch they taught 
that Jesus drove the devils out of two men 
into the swine, while at Damascus they men- 
tioned only one man. These differences arose 
very naturally. Each disciple told the things 
that he remembered best ; and as the human 
memory is fallible, these accounts of the same 
event necessarily varied. Thus it happened 



How the Gospels were Written. 6i 

that the gospel-tradition current in one re- 
gion contained certain teachings and cer- 
tain reports of incidents different from those 
that constituted the gospel-tradition in other 
regions. 

And it must be remembered that for a long 
time these reports about Jesus existed as 
oral traditions, not as written accounts. They 
had been given to the churches by the disci- 
ples, not in the form of documents, but in the 
form of sermons. 

Let us turn, for instance, to the reports of 
Peter's sermons contained in the second 
and third chapters of Acts. Now let us 
follow, in imagination, one of his converted 
hearers to Damascus or Caesarea, and listen 
to what he says to his neighbors at home. 
We should hear him repeating the substance 
of Peter's sermon, but with numerous, if un- 
important variations. Thus the gospel story 
would change in spreading; the essential 
thought would remain the same, but the 
coloring and details would vary. 

As the years went by, these gospel-tradi- 
tions, the accounts of Jesus which passed 
orally from one to another, were subject to 
two processes : — 

I. They were more and more shaped for 



62 yesus Brought Back. 

purposes of edification or religious instruc- 
tion. The popular interest in the gospel- 
traditions was not critical but moral, not 
historical but religious. People were more 
anxious to use them to create faith and 
higher life than to preserve them as abso- 
lutely accurate histories of Jesus. This ten- 
dency worked mightily '* to transform simple 
narrative into the symbol and channel of 
higher religious and moral truth." ^ For 
why preserve such a history, since Jesus was 
about to re-appear and dwell with them for- 
ever? Thus, without any purpose to deceive, 
the chief motive in using* the gospel-tradi- 
tions was so to present the story as to 
make converts. 

There was also a strong tendency among 
the early Christians to exalt Jesus, to present 
him as the perfect fulfilment of the Hebrew 
prophecies, in order to give his words power 
over the imagination and the conscience. 
Their first and chief object was to use the 
gospel-traditions to make men believe in Je- 
sus as the Messiah. Doubtless we seldom 
sufficiently realize, in reading the Gospels, that 
the purpose which created them was polemic 
rather than biographical. The crystallizing 

^ Holtzmann, Protestant Commentary, vol. i. p. 37. 



How the Gospels were Written. 63 

motive which accumulated and shaped the 
record was Messianic. Materials were se- 
lected which would create belief in Jesus as 
the Holy One foretold by the Prophets. 
The Gospels, then, are not so much the por- 
trait of a life as the plea for a faith ; not so 
much descriptions of a character as exposi- 
tions of a conviction. The ever-present mo- 
tive guiding' the writer was the desire to show 
that Jesus is Messiah ; to link him with proph- 
ecy. Prof. Holtzmann remarks, *' A purely 
and exclusively historical interest does not 
exist in early Christianity.'' ^ The author of 
Luke's Gospel expressly states that he writes 
to confirm faith. His words are, ^^ That thou 
mightest know the certainty of those things 
which thou wast taught by word of mouth." ^ 
To carry out this purpose Christian teach- 
ers felt free to arrange, reshape, and embel- 
lish the current reports. And in using the 
materials in this manner, parables were taken 
out of their place and made to illustrate Jesus* 
second coming, while many stories, like that 
of Jesus' temptation, were poetized until the 
original facts were obscured beyond recovery. 
But all this was done, not to falsify a written 

1 Protestant Commentary, vol. i. p. 38. 

2 Luke i. 4. 



64 Jesus Brought Back. 

record, for no such written record then ex- 
isted, but to make their message more effect- 
ual. Thus the original gospel-traditions or 
reports were slowly and successively embel- 
lished for purposes of instruction and edifi- 
cation. And evidences of this fact exist in 
our Gospels where we have both the prosaic 
and the poetical account of the same incident 
or teaching. 

2. Each gospel-tradition in the course of 
time was more and more enriched by mate- 
rials borrowed from the others. Intercourse 
between localities brought to the people of 
one region a knowledge of parables and inci- 
dents not contained in their own tradition; 
and these new materials were added to the 
stock of common information respecting Jesus. 
In this way the gospel-tradition of any one 
district, while maintaining its original char- 
acter to a certain degree, grew richer by ac- 
cretions borrowed from the traditions current 
in other regions. And as the critical spirit 
was entirely absent ; as, also, this new mate- 
rial was prized not so much for its historical 
accuracy as for its homiletical value, its power 
to produce faith, it was added without being 
scrutinized and without being compared 
carefully with the tradition there current. 



How the Gospels were Written. 65 

Little attention, therefore, was paid to the 
contradictions which thus crept in ; for peo- 
ple cared more about the general power of 
the tradition to create religious feeling and 
interest than about verbal accuracy. 

This, then, was the condition of affairs at 
the fall of Jerusalem, about forty years after 
Jesus' crucifixion, when nearly all, if not all, 
of the immediate disciples of Jesus had died. 
But those disciples had taken the first im- 
portant step; they had originated different 
gospel-traditions, which, as yet circulating 
orally, were subject to modification ; and 
were being enlarged by adding to each the 
material found in the others. And here, it 
must be remembered that these gospel-tra- 
ditions were only very brief and inadequate 
reports of Jesus, whose moral power was 
better illustrated and more effectually con- 
veyed by the new life of the reporters than 
by such traditions. The creative influence 
was communicated from one to another as a 
personal force rather than by a didactic les- 
son. And the power of the church was not 
in its writings, but in its new manhood and 
its new type of social union. While people 
then wished the gospel-tradition to represent 
Jesus correctly, yet they used great freedom 

5 



66 yesus Brought Back. 

in dealing with it, and were more anxious 
that it be serviceable for instruction than 
accurate in detail. 

Somewhere about the time of the fall of 
Jerusalem, A. D. 70, men began to commit 
these gospel-traditions to writing. And in 
this work they were influenced by causes which 
existed generally; and prominent among them 
were these : — 

1. As the expectation of Jesus' second 
coming became less intense, his followers 
began to prepare to make Christianity a 
permanent religion for the earth as it was; 
and for that purpose they felt the need of 
written records of his life. 

2. When the men who had known Jesus 
personally were nearly all dead, and when 
people could no longer hear the gospel from 
the lips of his immediate disciples, the de- 
mand was naturally made for something 
more definite and substantial than wavering, 
uncertain oral tradition. 

3. As heresies sprang up and as the habit 
of exaggeration developed, the more earnest 
and sober-minded sought some means by 
which to combat erroneous beliefs and to 
restrain lawless fancy. Such means they 
found in a written Gospel. 



How the Gospels were Written. 67 

The pressure of these conditions led men 
in various localities to write out what up to 
that time had existed as an oral gospel- 
tradition. But *' they were simply records 
made just as personal needs, and opportu- 
nity to supply them called them forth; and 
they circulated, possibly, scarcely beyond the 
threshold of their author/' ^ The names of 
two such writings, not to mention others, are 
known to us: i^a) The Gospel of the He- 
brews, which recorded the tradition as known 
in Palestine, and with which the name of Mat- 
thew was associated; a work which existed 
as late as the fourth century, {b) The Gos- 
pel of Peter, thought by some to have been 
almost the same as the former. This writing 
had considerable prominence in the second 
century, and doubtless recorded the gospel- 
tradition as known in Asia Minor. And a 
careful study of the Christian literature of the 
year 125 gives us many indications that other 
such Gospels were then in existence, whose 
very names have been lost, even if they ever 
bore any name at all, except that general 
name, *' Gospel of Jesus Christ.*' And these 
writings form what we may well call the first 
group or layer of gospel records or documents. 

1 Reuss, History of the New Testament, vol. i. § 174. 



68 Jesus Brought Back. 

This first attempt at the composition of a 
Gospel was simply the opening of a record- 
book in which some man wrote out the 
gospel-tradition as he knew it ; and then 
left the book open for others to transcribe 
into it new material. '' And when some- 
thing new or more accurate was learned, it 
could without difficulty be introduced into 
a work which consisted essentially only of 
a greater or less number of detached pas- 
sages, whose connection could neither be 
injured nor benefited by such interpolations 
or additions."^ 

In this way fragments of Jesus' discourses 
were put together until the Sermon on the 
Mount was formed. And as the gospel- 
traditions had been enriched by intercourse 
between different localities, so these written 
Gospels were enriched by copying out new 
material from one into another. Now it is 
doubtful whether any of these first gospel 
records — with the possible exception of Mat- 
thew's Sayings of the Lord, mentioned by 
Papias — were begun even by an immediate 
disciple of Jesus; while it is evident that 
none was vouched for by any leading apostle 
or metropolitan church; while all the evi- 

1 Reuss, History of the New Testament, vol. i. p. 172. 



How the Gospels were Written. 69 

dence goes to show that when these primi- 
tive Gospels had already been in existence 
for some years, they had no official authority 
whatever. 

It must be kept in mind that these first 
attempts to record the gospel-tradition were 
very brief in comparison with our four Gos- 
pels, and that oral tradition continued for 
many years to be used by their side as the 
chief and fuller source of Christian informa- 
tion and instruction. One of the very earli- 
est witnesses, Papias, who wrote about the 
middle of the second century, expressly 
states, ** For I do not think that I derived so 
much benefit from books as from the living 
voice of those that are still surviving."^ And 
by ** books,'' he doubtless had reference to 
these primitive gospel records. And as the 
primitive Gospels were brought into com- 
parison, and their defects made manifest, it 
would naturally occur to men, after a time, 
that out of them a complete gospel history 
ought to be composed. In this way our 
present Gospels came into existence; and 
they are all based upon these earlier docu- 
ments and represent the second group or 

1 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Cruse 's Translation, 
book iii. ch. xxxix. 



70 Jesus Brought Back. 

layer of gospel writings. And not only did 
the editors of our present Gospels use doc- 
uments previously written, but the later edi- 
tor — such as the author of Luke — used the 
work of the earlier editor — such as the Gospel 
according to Matthew. The process by which 
these second and completer Gospels grew up, 
and the character of the literary work thus 
produced have been well described by Dr. 
Samuel Davidson. He says : *^ The canoni- 
cal Gospels were composed out of written 
materials chiefly. Earlier documents, which 
afterwards disappeared, preceded and con- 
tributed to each. This applies not only to 
the first, but to the second and third. But 
oral tradition must not be excluded ; though 
it formed a small element in the composition 
of each, because much of it had been in- 
corporated into written collections when the 
canonical Gospels appeared. . . . The evan- 
gelists used one another freely, having ulte- 
rior sources, written and oral, which they 
employed according to the purpose that 
guided selection. It was not their intention 
to sift the documents at their disposal, to 
copy them literally, or to adhere to them 
slavishly. Their scope was wider, following 
no exact rule; and their passing from one 



How the Gospels were Written. 7 1 

source to another should not be judged by a 
modern standard." ^ 

Thus these Gospels which we possess are 
not reports of what Jesus said and did, writ- 
ten at the time on the spot. In their present 
shape they are not even the testimony of 
eye-witnesses; they are rather collections 
which men, near the beginning of the sec- 
ond century, edited from then existing writ- 
ings and traditions. The heading which each 
bears, such as '* The Gospel according to 
Matthew," simply means that the original 
oral source of the tradition thus written out 
was traced back to that apostle. 

The evidence that our present Gospels 
were so composed, and thus form the second 
group of gospel writings, is as follows : — 

I. There was a group of primitive Gos- 

1 Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i. pp. 353, 355. 

The language of Meyer, a leading German authority and 
inclined to the conservative side, is in the same line : " The 
view according to which one evangelist made use of the other 
— where, however, the gospel-tradition^ as it existed in a 
living form long before it was recorded in writing (Luke i. 
2), as well as old written documejits composed before our 
Gospels (Luke, /. c.)^ come also essentially into considera- 
tion — is the only one which is fitted to enable us to con- 
ceive of the synoptic relationship in a natural manner, and 
in agreement with the history." — Commentary on Matthew, 
p. 23. 



72 Jesus Brought Back. 

pels, such as the Gospel of the Hebrews, 
the Gospel of Peter, and others, which were 
widely known long before any trace of our 
four Gospels can be found. Though now 
lost, we have quotations from them which 
show that they gave the gospel story not 
only in a different form but in a more prim- 
itive form than that contained in our present 
Gospels. All of which proves that ours were 
produced in a later age. 

2. The fact that our present Gospels, even 
as late as the year 150, had no official au- 
thority proves that they were not early com- 
positions sent forth by the great apostles 
themselves. The conclusion of Dr. Samuel 
Davidson, after a careful study of all the 
primitive church writings, is thus expressed : 
** Before A. D. 160 there is no proof that 
Christians generally had great reverence for 
the first three Gospels, or for the productions 
by which they were preceded and by whose 
aid they were written." ^ If known to be the 
attested work of those apostles, they alone 
would have been depended upon for a knowl- 
edge of Jesus. But the fact that they only 
slowly gained circulation in the Church, and 
that during the second century a greater 

1 Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i. p. 363. 



How the Gospels were Written. 73 

value was found in oral tradition than in 
them, is decisive. We cannot reconcile the 
habit which church teachers then had of test- 
ing these written Gospels by oral tradition, 
with the theory that our Gospels were early 
put in circulation by the apostles themselves. 
If so, tradition would have been tested by 
them. Their unauthoritative character at 
that date proves conclusively their late and 
un-apostolic origin. All these facts go to 
establish the conclusion that our present four 
Gospels belong to a second group of gospel 
writings, — a truth to which the writer of Luke 
bears testimony by his express statement in 
the opening words of his Gospel, that '' many 
before him '* had made a declaration of the 
gospel story. 

3. This theory of the origin of our present 
Gospels is the only one which satisfactorily 
explains their peculiarities of construction 
and their relation to one another. A pass- 
ing glance at the first three Gospels shows 
that they are mosaics made up of many frag- 
ments which were put together without order 
or general plan. In many places, as in Luke 
viii., sayings without any connection and un- 
related events are joined together. In other 
places the order of events is inverted, — as, 



74 Jesus Brought Back. 

in Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount is 
put too early in Jesus' ministry. Again, the 
beginning and end of a narrative are sepa- 
rated by an interpolated incident, as in Mark 
vi. ; while the outlines are often unaccount- 
ably vague, — especially respecting names 
and the relation of events, — as in the ac- 
counts of the Resurrection and Ascension, 
showing how far the report had travelled 
by oral tradition before being written out. 
Now it is hardly possible that a companion 
of Jesus would have written out such a dis- 
connected and ill-arranged narrative. And 
it is especially in view of these characteris- 
tics, as illustrated in the case of Matthew, that 
Meyer is led to draw the conclusion, **In the 
form in which the Gospel now exists, it can- 
not have originally proceeded from the hands 
of the Apostle Matthew.'' ^ But if our Gos- 
pels had the origin here described; if for 
many years such gospel-traditions circulated 
orally and were successively enriched ; if 
they were then written out, and afterwards 
served as the materials out of which our 
Gospels were edited, then all is clear. 

Moreover, this theory of their origin ex- 
plains the relation of the Gospels to each 
1 Commentary on Matthew, p. 2. 



How the Gospels were Written. 75 

other. Any comparison of our first three 
Gospels proves that they are so much alike 
that they could not have had absolutely in- 
dependent origins; while their differences 
are such that they could not have been 
copied the one from the other. Now these 
facts are all accounted for if we suppose our 
Gospels edited from a mass of primitive 
gospel records. For in this case, at certain 
places each editor would copy from a dif- 
ferent document, while at others all would 
copy from the same document ; which would 
produce that curious relation of likeness 
and unlikeness which exists among those 
Gospels. 

4. But the chief evidence for this theory, 
and the complete proof of the late origin of 
our present Gospels, is the fact that they 
were never definitely quoted until after the 
year 150. We have something like a dozen 
Christian writings which belong to the first 
half of the second century, or very near to 
that period of years; and in them all the 
sayings of Jesus and numerous incidents of 
his life are mentioned, but it is evident that 
the writers did not draw their information 
from our Gospels. Those early writers never 
in a single case give direct quotations from 



76 Jesus Brought Back. 

our Gospels; nor do we find their names 
anywhere in all the pages of that literature. 

Papias, in writing near the middle of the 
second century, mentions certain writings of 
Matthew and Mark about Jesus; ^ but critics 
as a rule conclude that what Papias referred 
to in these words were not the Gospels of 
Matthew and Mark as we know them, but the 
primitive documents from which the present 
Gospels were built up by repeated enlarge- 
ment and re-editing. The reasons for this 
conclusion cannot be given here, but they 
are sufficient to satisfy every unprejudiced 
mind.2 Justin Martyr, about the same time, 
referred to certain *' Memoirs of the Apos- 
tles,'' as a work or works giving information 
about Jesus, but it is evident that he did not 
here refer to any one of our Gospels ; because 
his quotations from it or them are very unlike 
the language of the Gospels. Justin would 
not have written as he did, had he held our 
Gospels as apostolic narratives in his hands.^ 

1 Quoted by Eusebius in " Eccl. Hist.," bk. iii. ch. xxxix. 

2 For a full discussion of this subject, see Meyer, Com- 
mentaries on Matthew and Mark ; Reuss, Hist, of the N. T., 
vol. i. §§ i86, 187 ; and Davidson, Int. to the N. T. vol. i. 

^ An exhaustive treatment of this point may be found in 
" Supernatural Religion," part ii. ch. iii., and in Giles's 
** Christian Records," ch. xiii. 



How the Gospels were Written, jj 

When, therefore, we carefully examine the 
references to Jesus and his teachings con- 
tained in the Christian writings which belong 
to the half-century A. D. 100-150, what we 
find is overwhelming proof that the writers 
did not make use of our Gospels in their 
present shape, but of other writings, which 
have perished. They refer to incidents in 
the life of Jesus not mentioned in our Gos- 
pels : Jesus is said to have been born in a 
cave ; and a fire is said to have been kindled 
in the Jordan at his baptism.^ They refer to 
many sayings of Jesus not contained in our 
Gospels : Barnabas quotes this as a saying of 
Jesus, *^ Those who wish to behold me, and 
touch my kingdom, must through tribulation 
and suffering lay hold of me." ^ Polycarp 
gives this as one of Jesus' teachings, '' Pity 
that ye may be pitied." ^ And Clement rep- 
resents Jesus as saying, '^ As ye are good, 
so shall good be done to you." ^ It is evi- 
dent at a glance that these writers must have 
had some other documents before them be- 
side our Gospels. 

1 Justin Martyr, Dialogue, ch. Ixxviii., Ixxxviii. 

2 Epistle, ch. vii. 

^ To the Philippians, ch. ii. 
* To the Corinthians, ch. xiii. 



78 yesus Brought Back. 

And we find in these writings quotations 
like this, '' Cleave to holy men, for those 
who cleave to them shall be made holy," 
used as the exact language of Jesus, and 
accompanied with this remark, '' It is writ- 
ten ; '' ^ but it is not so written in our Gospels, 
which shows that the author had some other 
record before him which he used as authority. 

Justin Martyr, who wrote about the year 
150, was the representative Christian writer 
and thinker of his age. He quoted about 
two hundred of Jesus' sayings, but in such a 
manner as to show that he was not using our 
four Gospels as his authorities ; for, while in 
the majority of cases the ideas are similar, 
though not always, yet the original Greek 
used by Justin is radically unlike that of 
the parallel passages in our Gospels. If we 
compare a saying of Jesus containing, say, 
twenty-five words, as given in Justin, with the 
corresponding passage as given in one of our 
Gospels, we shall, as a rule, find about these 
diff"erences: fifteen of Justin's words are 
different from those of the Gospel or are un- 
represented by synonyms ; five have different 
grammatical form, while only five are iden- 
tical. Such facts prove that Justin did not 
1 Clement, To the Corinthians, ch. xlvi. 



How the Gospels zvere Written. 79 

use our Gospels. Sanday, in his '^ Gospels in 
the Second Century," has said all that can be 
said to show that Justin did use our Gospels ; 
but if one will read his chapter and then read 
*' Supernatural Religion," part ii. ch. iii., he 
will see how utterly inadequate the evidence 
for the traditional theory is. 

Now all these facts, — that those ea y 
writers made no mention of, and no direct c no- 
tation from, our Gospels ; that they did quote 
the sayings of Jesus from other documents 
apparently well known ; also, that the gospel 
story as they gave it was, in language espec- 
ially, unlike our gospel record, — fully estab- 
lish these two conclusions : — 

1. That a number of primitive gospel nar- 
ratives were used long before the writings 
which we know as Gospels were composed. 

2. That during the first half of the second 
century our Gospels, though doubtless in 
existence, had no official authority; but 
rather, preference was given to other sources 
for information respecting Jesus. 

The general truth which we reach, then, is 
this : The materials out of which our Gospels 
were formed first existed for nearly half a cen- 
tury as oral traditions ; these traditions were 
then written out and formed brief gospel 



8o yesus Brought Back. 

narratives, by the side of which a richer oral 
tradition continued to be used ; finally, our 
Gospels were edited^ near the beginning of 
the second century, out of these narratives 
and traditions, and they embrace the sub- 
stance, but not all, of what was then known 
about Jesus ; yet they only slowly gained au- 
thority, and there was no absolutely uniform 
text or form of the story of Jesus' doings 
and sayings during the second century. 

There are differences of opinion among 
our great Biblical scholars respecting both 
the date of the first three Gospels and the 
order of their production. Luke is, however, 
placed after Matthew by all, and assigned in 
its present shape to about A.D. i lo. Whether 
Mark is prior to Matthew, or the reverse, is a 
point of great dispute.^ Whichever opinion 
may be true, the final editors who put them 
in their present shape must have done their 
work somewhere in the score of years A. D. 
90-110. But it must be remembered that 
doubtless all contain passages much older 
than these dates, — fragments taken from the 

1 The priority of Matthew is ably defended by David- 
son, Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i., and by 
Keim, Jesus of Nazara, vol. i. ; while the priority of 
Mark is upheld by Reuss, History of the New Testament, 
vol. i. §§ 189-19 [. 



How the Gospels were Written. 8i 

earlier and primitive Gospels. Matthew, 
in its later chapters, contains paragraphs 
which must have been written before the 
destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70 ; and from 
this fact it has been argued that the whole 
work was composed before that date. The 
fact, however, simply proves that in its pres- 
ent shape it was built up from materials some 
of which were written as early as that date. 
Its baptismal formula, on the other hand 
(Matthew xxviii. 19), unknown to apostolic 
times, proves that this portion was written 
toward the close of the first century. Reuss, 
in discussing the date of Matthew, brings out 
this point clearly: ** The problem of the age 
of this work is no longer a simple one, when 
different constituents have once been pointed 
out in it. The fact that subsequent writers 
knew nothing whatever of them shows the 
imperfect character of their information. It 
is certain that some of the discourses of 
Jesus, as they are here found, were written 
down before the destruction of Jerusalem, 
and tolerably shortly before. From this it 
may perhaps be inferred that the extant re- 
vision was made, at the earliest, in the last 
quarter of the first century." ^ 

1 History of the New Testament, vol. i. § 196. 
6 



82 Jesus Brought Back. 

We must therefore look upon our Gospels 
as comparatively late compilations, which 
aimed to give a fuller gospel history than 
had before existed in written form. And it 
was the desire for completeness which led to 
those additions that continued to be made to 
them for some years after they were first put 
in circulation. Men wanted the fullest possi- 
ble knowledge of Jesus ; and if they came 
across a valuable tradition not contained in 
their manuscript copy of the Gospel, they 
added it to their copy, — a process by which 
all our Gospels have been enriched. A nota- 
ble example of this method of enlargement is 
furnished by Mark, — the last twelve verses of 
which were so added.^ This process con- 
tinued as late as the fifth century, as the 
marginal notes of the Revised Version of the 
New Testament so fully show, — a fact which 
proves that the text was not absolutely fixed 
even at that time. 

If we look at the nineteenth chapter of 
Matthew or the ninth chapter of Luke, in the 
Revised Version of 1881, we shall see it stated 
in the margin in a half-dozen places that 
** many ancient authorities '' give different 
readings, — a fact which proves to the dullest 
1 See Revised Version of 1881. 



How the Gospels were Written. 83 

mind that no supernatural providence watched 
over the transmission of our text or guaran- 
teed its accuracy ; and it also shows how far 
our text is removed from an autograph copy 
of the original, while it suggests that there 
may be many other variations which we 
cannot discover, because, having no manu- 
scripts belonging to the second or third cen- 
turies, we possess no means by which we 
can trace changes in those centuries, when 
changes were doubtless more common than 
afterwards.^ 

Now it is evident that as men began to 
depend more and more upon written Gos- 
pels, these larger writings would crowd aside 
the earlier and briefer ones ; some of which 
were finally rejected and lost because they 
were used chiefly by heretical parties. The 
influence of the great metropolitan churches 
was also decisive. They were in a position 
to decide what were best; and their deci- 
sion became the rule of Christendom. And 
so our Gospels survived out of a consid- 

^ See, for a brief history of the text, Scrivener, Six 
Lectures on the Text of the New Testament. Compare 
also two articles on the Revision of 1881 : London Quar- 
terly, October, 188 1 ; Contemporary Review, December, 
1881. 



84 Jesus Brought Back. 

erable mass of gospel literature; and they 
survived not by formal or official act, but 
because general use selected them as fittest 
to survive. 

What has been said applies especially to 
our first three Gospels ; but the general prin- 
ciple set forth applies also to the Fourth, 
commonly called John's Gospel ; which was, 
however, a later and more deliberate compo- 
sition. Its author, not the Apostle John, the 
son of Zebedee, doubtless had access to a 
line of gospel-traditions somewhat different 
from those contained in the other three ; but 
he used his materials freely, not so much to 
give a historical portraiture of Jesus as to 
illustrate and justify his own theological con- 
ception of Jesus. 

This Gospel is thus the investiture of Jesus 
with the Logos conception, the doctrine of a 
Creative Word, standing between the name- 
less One and nature, — a conception which, 
rooted in Platonism, was at this time being 
worked out in detail at Alexandria.^ 

The three chief arguments for this conclu- 
sion are: First, The radical difference be- 
tween the portrait of Jesus as given here and 
in the other Gospels. It is not a picture of 
^ See Drummond, Philo Judaeus, book iii. ch. vi. 



How the Gospels were Written. 85 

the same man from a different point of view, 
but of an absolutely different personality. 
This difference has been well stated by James 
Martineau : *' The concrete language of life, 
born in the field, the boat, the olive-ground, 
is exchanged for the abstract forms of philo- 
sophical conception, — the terse maxims of 
conduct and epigrams of moral wisdom, for 
doctrinal enigmas and hinted mysteries of 
sentiment. The simple directness with which, 
in the earlier reports, the speaker advances 
to his end, and leaves it, is here replaced by 
the windings of subtle reflection, and the rep- 
etitions of unsatisfied controversy. We pass 
from the breath and sunshine of the hills to 
the studious air and nocturnal lamp of the 
library; and exchange the music of living 
voices, never twice the same, for a monoto- 
nous pitch of speech, which flows unvaried 
through the lips of Jesus or the historian, of 
Nicodemus or the woman of Samaria, of this 
disciple or of that.'' ^ 

Second, The differences between this Gos- 
pel and Revelation show that one man could 
not have written both. These differences 
extend from the details of form to the fun- 

^ The Fourth Gospel, Old and New, vol. x. p. 204. See 
also Keim, Jesus of Nazara, vol. i. p. 1 52 et seq. 



86 JesMS Brought Back. 

damental questions of providence and the 
mission of Jesus. The Greek of Revelation 
is the most awkward and incorrect in the 
New Testament, that of the Fourth Gospel 
the most elegant ; the standpoint of Revela- 
tion is Jerusalem, that of the Fourth Gospel 
the Cosmos itself; the spirit of Revelation is 
intensely Jewish, that of the Fourth Gospel 
broadly cosmopolitan ; the Messianic hope is 
prominent in Revelation, but wholly absent 
from the Fourth Gospel ; Jesus in Revelation 
glorifies Judaism by exhibiting the wrath of 
God upon its enemies, in the Fourth Gospel 
he is a power of light winning men by spirit- 
ual attraction ; in Revelation expectation cen- 
tres on the day of judgment as an impending 
calamity to the earth, in the Fourth Gospel 
believers already possess eternal life, while 
judgment is a spiritual process. Such differ- 
ences compel the conclusion that one was 
written by a Jewish seer, while the other is 
the work of a Gentile philosopher. And 
as Revelation was undoubtedly the work 
of John, it follows that the Gospel could 
not have been from his hand. The judg- 
ment of Reuss is this : '* The two types of 
Christian teaching presented in the Fourth 
Gospel and in the book of the Revelation 



How the Gospels were Written. 87 

could not exist simultaneously in the same 
mind."i 

Third, The work itself bears evidences of 
being the writing of one little acquainted with 
the habits of Palestinian Jews, — an ignorance 
such as John could not have displayed. Da- 
vidson wisely remarks, '^ The way in which 
the Jews are spoken of is vague, indicating a 
relation foreign to that people. The writer 
seems to occupy a position distant from their 
religion and customs."^ The prominence ev- 
erywhere in the Fourth Gospel of a dogmatic 
purpose, the suppression of those details 
which show Jesus' dependence upon Juda- 
ism, the sameness of style in the narrative 
and in the speeches of Jesus, and many 
other facts, prove that it is not a strict rec- 
ord, but a poetical and speculative treatment 
of Jesus' life.^ It evidently contains much 
of the spirit of Jesus and records many facts 

1 Apostolic Age, vol. ii. p. 507. See also, Tayler, The- 
Fourth Gospel, Section Second. 

2 Introduction to the New Testament, vol. ii. p. 399. 

3 It is an interesting and prophetic fact that in the Bib- 
liotheca Sacra, January, 1880 (p. 90), one of its editors, Dr. 
Duff, in an article on " The Theological Use of the Bible," 
used this language : " The Fourth Gospel, whose apostolic 
author took the best means to conceal his identity, is no 
report at all, but a series of sermons on Jesus, giving sys- 
tematically the writer's own mode of regarding him." 



88 yesus Brought Back. 

respecting his career, but it is not a report 
which can be used for exact historical infor- 
mation. The events of Jesus' Hfe are there 
idealized, and the author has often so fused 
his own thought with the teaching of Jesus 
that we cannot hold Jesus responsible for all 
that is there attributed to him. This conclu- 
sion is one upon which great scholars are 
approaching unanimity. 

Now several important conclusions are jus- 
tified by these discoveries of modern scholar- 
ship respecting the method by which the 
gospel records were produced. 

I. We are prepared to set down as legend- 
ary what has long been regarded as histori- 
cal. Works so constructed could not fail to 
contain legendary material. To deny this, 
to insist that the gospel texts bear the stamp 
of absolute infallibility, to contend that we 
have there nothing but the exact record of 
what Jesus said and did, is simply to shut 
our eyes to the light and to ignore results 
of investigations that have been most rev- 
erent and accurate. Therefore what is said 
about Jesus' birth, about his temptation, about 
his re-appearances after the crucifixion, and 
about his ascension must be looked upon as 
legendary. 



How the Gospels were Written. 89 

These written Gospels we must ever remem- 
ber did not create the Church, but were cre- 
ated by it in a very uncritical age. They are 
neither fabrications nor revelations, but rec- 
ords of traditions which started in the reports 
made by men who knew and loved Jesus, 
and who intended to tell the truth ; but these 
reports had been out of their keeping for two 
generations and had been worked over by 
many other persons before they were given 
their final shape. That they were attempts 
to give a true account of Jesus is certain ; 
but that they are absolutely accurate accounts 
is manifestly impossible. The truth is well 
stated by Keim : *' It must, however, be ad- 
mitted that every word is not a saying nor 
every narrative a history of Jesus. ... In 
one particular the sayings in Matthew, and 
indeed in the other Gospels, may have been 
obscured, not only in their connection, but in 
their substance, — in the revelations of the 
future. Much is here given to the mouth of 
Jesus which expressed the watching, the de- 
sire, and confidence of the believers, and 
which was in after times the solace of those 
who thus waited." ^ 

2. Works so constructed would naturally 

1 Jesus of Nazara, vol. i. p. 91 et seq. 



90 Jesus Brought Back. 

contain many contradictions. And since 
Strauss's searching analysis hardly a first- 
class scholar has maintained the opposite. 
Even such men as the pious Neander have 
admitted that the Gospels contain inaccura- 
cies, while conservative critics like Meyer no 
longer deny such contradictions. If any one 
will place in parallel columns the different 
accounts of the calling of the apostles, of the 
last supper, or of the resurrection, — of which 
Meyer remarks, '' To harmonize these diver- 
gent accounts is impossible,"^ — or if he will 
consult a candid work like Giles's '^ Christian 
Records/' he will see that there are contra- 
dictions which no sophistry can obscure and 
which no ingenuity can remove. 

3. These writings certainly do not afford 
any adequate evidence of miracles. It used to 
be said that the Gospels afford us the reports 
of four eye-witnesses, whose testimony must 
be accepted or all the moral truth therein 
contained be rejected. But as Picton says, 
'' As well might heathen priests tell the 
doubters of their mythology that if they 
cease to worship the sun there is no justifica- 
tion for their feeling the warmth of his beams 
or the joy of [Nature's] revival at spring- 
1 Commentary on Matthew, p. 522. 



How the Gospels were Writte^i. 91 

time."^ The facts, however, already stated 
show how far these narratives in their present 
shape are removed from the reports of eye- 
witnesses. But though these writings are 
wholly incompetent to serve as evidence to 
prove such miracles, yet we may accept their 
general accuracy; for, naturally, they are 
most unreliable just where they touch the 
region of the supernatural. 

The demand often urged by the defenders 
of traditional theology, Accept all or reject 
all; believe every text as absolute truth or 
put all aside as a forgery, is supremely irra- 
tional and involves a principle which we use 
nowhere else. We reject Macaulay's account 
of William Penn, and yet we read his history 
with delight and profit. The writers and ed- 
itors of the Gospels must be judged with 
reference to their age, when behef in miracles 
was a part of every man's intellectual furnish- 
ing. And it was inevitable that this belief 
should show itself in their accounts of Jesus, 
however honestly they wrote. What we have 
to eliminate is not fraud, but the product of 
unregulated fancy. This point is well taken 
by Dr. Abbott: '' If we once admit that mira- 
cles were certain to be attributed to Jesus, 
1 Modern Review, January, 1 88 1, p. 173. 



92 yesus Brought Back. 

whether he wrought them or not, because 
they would be assumed as necessary both by 
Jews and Gentiles, both by friends and foes, 
then all suspicion of dishonesty vanishes at 
once, and the non-miraculous element re- 
mains as credible as ever."^ 

And again, the moral truth and spiritual 
power of these Gospels are no more dependent 
upon the absolute truthfulness of their state- 
ments respecting wonders, than the beauty 
of Shakspeare upon a belief in the reality of 
the ghosts which he brings into his dramas. 
When the Gospels are viewed in the light of 
these facts, it does not seem strange that we 
find there the story of the miracle at the mar- 
riage feast in Cana of Galilee ; and when we 
put it aside as a legendary embellishment, 
the Beatitudes seem no less divine. 

4. It is evident also that these records are 
colored by the personal beliefs of their writers 
and compilers. They were all written to 
prove and illustrate certain beliefs about Je- 
sus ; and being so written, they all show the 
presence of tendencies which shaped the ma- 
terial for a dogmatic purpose. For we must 
remember that primitive Christianity was not 
a homogeneous movement, but a cluster of 

1 Oxford Sermons, p. Ivii. 



How the Gospels were Written. 93 

opposing tendencies and antagonistic parties. 
There was a Jewish tendency, a Hellenic ten- 
dency, and afterwards a Gnostic tendency; 
the party of James, the party of Paul, and 
then the party represented by the Fourth 
Gospel. And those early strifes left their 
marks on the gospel records. The writers 
of the Gospels, then, were not primarily histo- 
rians, but advocates of a doctrine ; they wrote 
to advance a certain religious theory; and 
however honest their intentions, such a per- 
sonal bias would show itself throughout the 
length and breadth of their work. 

In Matthew, Jesus is represented with great 
care as the fulfilment of the law; the narra- 
tive is shaped to show that Jesus is the Mes- 
siah foretold in the Old Testament. This 
Gospel contains more Old Testament quota- 
tions than all the others. Everywhere we 
meet a Jewish flavor. Old Testament pas- 
sages are applied to Jesus in the most unwar- 
ranted fashion. And in some places it is 
evident that ardent fancy has created certain 
features in order that Jesus* career might bear 
a closer likeness to the prophetic ideal. 

But in reading Luke we find ourselves in 
a different atmosphere; there is a broader 
horizon and a freer spirit. Here are indi- 



94 Jesus Brought Back. 

cations of a Pauline influence. The gene- 
alogy of Jesus is traced to Adam, the father 
of the race, rather than to Abraham, the 
father of the Hebrews. In Luke vi. 36, we 
find, *'Be ye therefore merciful; " whereas in 
Matthew v. 48, we read, ^^Be ye therefore 
perfect," — the latter reminding us of the 
law, the former reporting Paul's idea of 
grace. Also, Jesus is represented by Luke 
as associating more freely with Gentiles, and 
as looking at the world outside Judaism with 
greater sympathy. 

Again, in the Fourth Gospel, more empha- 
sis is placed upon the person of Jesus. We 
touch here a later age, when people were 
debating the rank of Jesus. There is here 
no Sermon on the Mount, but a great deal 
about Jesus' relation to God, — a theme never 
discussed in the other Gospels. There is no 
human development, no growth of incidents, 
no relations to humanity ; speculative consid- 
erations are paramount. We feel that we are 
(dealing not so much with a personality as with 
a philosophical abstraction. The conclusion 
is forced upon us that the writer used his ma- 
terial to illustrate a theory, rather than to paint 
a portrait. 

And yet none of the Gospels is exactly 



Hoiv the Gospels were Written. 95 

homogeneous, as no one person contributed 
all its materials. As each was made up from 
a variety of sources, being a compilation of 
different documents, the characteristics of 
each contributor would show through, though 
the compiler might be careful to shape all 
to his liking. Therefore, as each Gospel is a 
growth, not a homogeneous composition, it 
is not pervaded by one tendency alone. The 
original spirit of the nucleus, written while 
Jewish ideas were strong in the Church, is 
not wholly obscured, though the newer parts 
are more catholic. These differences are evi- 
dent to the careful student. 

5. And though they grew up in this free 
manner, yet these gospel records alone prove 
the greatness of Jesus. They testify to a de- 
votion which only a sublime personality could 
have inspired ; they give glimpses of power 
such as only a supreme genius could have ex- 
ercised ; but the Church that treasured them 
is the chief illustration and proof of his power 
and nobility. 

The disciples were neither capable of fully 
understanding Jesus nor of reporting him with 
absolute accuracy.^ In the process of hand- 
ing down that oral tradition some of his 
1 See Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, chap. vi. 



96 yesus Brought Back, 

thoughts would be obscured by being mixed 
with their own notions; and works edited 
from such material would necessarily contain 
some unhistorical matter. Yet, however long 
carried in memory or whenever written out, 
they give much of his spirit and many facts 
respecting his life, but not a full nor an in- 
fallible account of his mission. 

The Gospels, then, contain enough of the 
mind of Jesus to make them reasonably accu- 
rate records of his life, and they afford us a 
priceless treasure of truth ; still we must read 
them with open eyes, as well as reverent 
hearts ; and we must remember that the Liv- 
ing God is our God, to be found in our souls 
rather than in a text, and to be served by 
love and purity, rather than by unreasoning 
faith. 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 



REFERENCES. 

A. The World into which Jesus came and his relation 

TO it: 

1. Baur, Church History, vol. i. part i. 

2. Hausrath, New Testament Times, vol. 1. second division. 

3. Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers. 

4. Zeller, The Stoics, ch. x.-xiv. 

5. Lecky, European Morals, vol. i. ch. ii. 

6. Fisher, The Beginnings of Christianity, ch. ii.-vii. 

7. Reuss, Apostolic Age, vol. i. book i. 

8. Ewald, History of Israel, vol. vi. pp. 1-136. 

B. Six Great Lives of Jesus: 

1. Keim, Jesus of Nazara, especially vols. ii. and vi. 

Exhaustive and critical, yet reverent. 

2. Hausrath, New Testament Times, vol. ii. sixth division. 

Clear, comprehensive, and very admirable. 

3. Hooykaas, Bible for Learners, vol. iii. book i. 

Rational in spirit and popular in form. 

4. Renan, Life of Jesus. 

A vivid but inadequate portraiture. 

5. Weiss, The Life of Jesus. 

Broad and elaborate, but limited by the traditional bias. 

6. Ewald, History of Israel, vol. vi. 

Diffuse and often fanciful, but learned and suggestive. 

C. The Life and Teaching of Jesus for Young People: 

1. Wilson, New Testament Parables. 

For young children. 

2. Brown, The Life of Jesus. 

For children from ten to twelve years old. 

3. Frothingham, Stories from the Lips of the Teacher. 

For children from twelve to fourteen years old. 

4. Gannett, The Childhood of Jesus. 

Rich in hints for parent and teacher. 

5. Clodd, Jesus of Nazareth. 

For young men and women. 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 

THE word '' Jesus '* has more historic sig- 
nificance than any other name in the 
annals of the human race. No other name 
has entered with such transforming and 
sanctifying influence into the affairs of man. 
The words '^Buddha" and ''Confucius'' have 
been reverently spoken by more people, but 
those people have been comparatively mo- 
notonous masses. But how marvellous in 
character, in variety, and in number are the 
creations that have sprung up about Jesus to 
perpetuate his power, to spread his gospel, 
and to expound the mystery of his person ! 
What literary activities have clustered about 
that name ! And now, at the end of nearly 
twenty centuries, the freshest book from the 
press, most eagerly sought by scholar and 
peasant, finding its way into the heart of 
Africa, through the jungles of India, into 
the seaports of China, is one that robes that 
figure in some new thought or sentiment. 
On every hand, among the cities of Europe, 



lOO Jesus Brought Back. 

over all other structures, rise cathedrals in 
their massive grandeur, — the gospel of Jesus 
put into stone. And the cross, the symbol of 
the heroism and pathos of his life, has become 
the great word in a universal language of the 
heart. What mountain on whose bleak crags 
its shadow does not fall ! What city over 
whose teeming life its arms do not glisten ! 
What isle of the sea where it is not planted 
at the head of some grave ! When we look 
at any art-collection in the world, on every 
hand we see that genius has striven to immor- 
talize that name. The history of the Christ of 
art tells the story of European art for twenty 
centuries. And to perpetuate the accents of 
that mystery has been the inspiration of music. 

Who can number the theological systems 
that have clustered about Jesus, in these three- 
score generations? What labyrinths of spec- 
ulation ! Councils have been called from the 
ends of the earth to decide questions relative 
to his nature and message. What infinite 
range of ideas has been covered by that 
name ! Men have read into that word '* Jesus " 
everything, from pure humanity to absolute 
Deity. 

Some of the greatest political movements 
of the race have been associated with that 



Jesus of Nazareth. loi 

name. The Holy Roman Empire, the Cru- 
sades, the Saxon Reformation, the voyage of 
the Pilgrims to America in search of an asy- 
lum for their faith, — these movements illus- 
trate the historic significance of the Christ. 
To-day the Pope rules at Rome in the name 
of Jesus over an ecclesiastical system which 
is the most marvellous exhibition of adminis- 
tration that was ever created ; which embraces 
in its designs the whole race, and touches by 
its influence every land and people ; and which 
promises an assured perpetuity, in strange 
contrast to the fluctuating fortunes of ordi- 
nary dynasties. And the civilization that 
now encircles the globe; that holds the un- 
exhausted energies and leavening powers of 
the race ; that surrounds barbarism and con- 
tracts its limits ; that fraternizes the nations ; 
that breaks the slave's chains, levels the walls 
of caste, and dissipates the darkness of super- 
stition, — is christened in honor of Jesus. We 
cannot say, as it was once said, that the forces 
of civilization all flow from Jesus as from a 
fountain, — they must be regarded as inherent 
in human nature itself; yet it is a fact of 
history that where that name has gone, there 
has been the highway of humanity. The 
horoscope divides the races of the future 



I02 y'esus Brought Back. 

between Muhammed and Jesus; and while 
Islam can do more for Pagan nations than 
the Church, yet the civilization connected 
with the name of Jesus will be dominant, 
because it contains the garnered riches of the 
centuries, and its races possess the maturer 
manhood. 

The relation of Jesus to personal religion, — 
to the ideal and aspiration of individual souls, 
— though not unique, is supreme; he does 
not stand alone, and yet he is pre-eminent. 
The influence of Aristotle is scholastic; he 
shapes the form of man's thought. The in- 
fluence of Muhammed is disciplinary; he 
harnesses men into new habits. The influ- 
ence of Confucius is didactic; he teaches 
people a code of morals, a system of conduct. 
The influence of Buddha is exemplary; he 
illustrates an attitude of self-renunciation. 
But the influence of Jesus is personal, put- 
ting us into companionship with a great Life. 
Thus Christianity, under all its creeds and 
ecclesiasticisms, has been a personal religioft. 
Men, brought into contact with Jesus, have 
felt themselves in the presence of a lovable 
and loving person, — a man of thought, but 
not a teacher like Aristotle; a master, but 
not a disciplinarian like Muhammed ; a moral 



Jesus of Nazareth. i o 3 

leader, but not a tutor like Confucius ; a per- 
fect man, but not the one type like Buddha. 
Jesus has stood for a tender intimacy and 
creative inspiration which no other prophet 
has ever inspired. There is respect for Mu- 
hammed, reverence of Confucius, imitation of 
Buddha, but love for Jesus, — him men have 
taken into their hearts. Jesus has been a 
personal presence or ideal force that has built 
itself into human life. Men have kept the 
Jesus who walked through the fields of Gali- 
lee in their most intimate and loving fellow- 
ship. Nothing like this is true to the same 
extent of any other person in history. And 
that great historic institution, the Church, has 
built everywhere shrines to his memory, and 
has planted in all lands the symbols of his 
gospel. We must then ascend this stream 
of influence to gain some closer and clearer 
view of the personality of Jesus, and to read 
the lineaments of that character which has 
shed over the centuries such light and love. 

Let us then look at the Christian Church 
as it existed about the year A. D. 150. We 
find there the thought of one, holy, loving, 
and almighty God, who was worshipped as 
the Father with infinite trust and tenderest 
reverence. The words of the Apostles' Creed, 



I04 yesus Brought Back. 

which are ^' ethnic, and belong to all nations," ^ 
are these : *^ I believe in God the Father Al- 
mighty, Maker of heaven and earth/' ^ ^ 
very little reflection will show how general 
this ethical monotheism was among enlight- 
ened and earnest men throughout the Roman 
Empire at the beginning of the Christian 
movement. Hillel had called Jehovah the 
Divine Tenderness ; ^ Philo had named him 
the Ineffable Spirit;^ that unconscious Chris- 
tian, Plutarch, wrote reverently of God as the 
Father of the World ; Seneca taught that God 
is a Father magnificent, who tries and trains 
with kindly authority the children whom he 
loves with a paternal but robust affection, 
while he spoke of benevolence as the great 
necessity of life, and named death '* the birth- 
day of eternal life/' ^ Such religious and 
moral elements existed far and wide, and they 
were the materials of which the Church was 
made, being organized in it by a central at- 
traction. Yet there was something new in 

1 The words of Goethe, used and approved by Stanley, 
Christian Institutions, ch. xiv., "The Creed of the Early 
Christians." 

2 Schaif, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. i. 

3 Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, Excursus v. 
^ Drummond, Philo Judaeus, book iii. ch. iv. 

5 Zeller, Stoics, etc., ch. ix. 



Jesus of Nazareth. 105 

quality and original in power about this 
thought of God's fatherhood as it existed in 
the Church. It was there translated into a 
living sentiment, being inrooted as a life- 
motive ; it ruled as a religious conviction in 
a more direct and explicit manner. And 
this difference lay chiefly in the fact that the 
Church presented monotheism — belief in the 
fatherhood of God — as one of the organic 
principles of an institution, rather than as 
merely a private opinion. For there is vast 
difference in dynamic power between an in- 
dividual notion respecting God, and the same 
conception when it has become the bond of 
union and common conviction of an associa- 
tion of men. And just this difference, among 
others, separated such society as that com- 
posed by men like Seneca from the Church. 

We find in the Church itself a social organ- 
ism, based upon equality, inspired by love of 
domestic purity and public justice, impelled 
by sympathy, and engaged in the ministries 
of self-help and beneficence. It was an insti- 
tution not wholly original ; the Jews had their 
synagogue,^ which was temple, schoolhouse, 
and office of charities, — the mother of the 
Church itself; the philosophers had their 

1 Schiirer, The Jewish People, vol. ii. § 27. 



io6 JesMS Brought Back. 

school, and the common people had their ben- 
eficiary associations ; ^ yet a new spirit resided 
and presided in the Church ; it was a type of 
social union with a humaner scope, with a 
more ethical atmosphere and a more practical 
impulse than anything else then in existence. 
And the importance of the Church as a social 
organization, administered upon the principle 
of equality, has never been adequately treated 
by ecclesiastical historians. Here was an or- 
ganic power, more worthy study and of vaster 
influence than any dogma; and it was this 
power which reorganized European institu- 
tions. We never make a greater mistake than 
when we suppose that it was Christianity as a 
creed which regenerated European society : it 
was rather Christianity as a kind of life, a moral 
sentiment organized as a social institution. 

We find also in the Church a strict and lofty 
moral ideal. Its members have often been 
painted as too good, and their non-Christian 
neighbors as too sinful ; for while better than 
the masses, yet Christians then were not so 
much superior to some outside their bounds 
as is generally claimed.^ 

1 Felton, Greece, Ancient and Modern, Lecture vii. Sec- 
ond Series. 

2 See Merivale, The Romans under the Empire, vol. vi. 
ch. liv. 



JesMS of Nazareth. 107 

Thus, we find that the Church was not an 
absolute creation de novOy nor wholly unre- 
lated to the surrounding civilization, but rather 
an institution which was rooted in the past, 
and which drew its elements from existing 
society; yet in its piety there was a new 
flavor, in its social ministries a new spirit, in 
its moral sentiments a new intensity; all of 
which can be explained only upon the suppo- 
sition that those previously existing elements 
received a new life by their organization about 
a sublime personality. 

And if we look closely at the people who 
constituted the Church in those ages, we find 
that they referred the ideal, inspiration, and 
authority of this new life to a certain great 
person, dearly beloved, — Jesus of Nazareth. 
And among them, aside from all written ac- 
counts, there existed a common oral tradition, 
by which Jesus' teachings were published, in 
which floated a picture of his character, and 
from which men learned to attribute a certain 
virtue to his death and resurrection. The 
quality of individual life, the spirit of that 
organism, the tradition itself, all argue a sub- 
lime personality as the source of this phe- 
nomenon. Therefore we may say that if we 
had nothing else but that institution, — the 



io8 Jesus Brought Back. 

Church as it existed about the year A. D. 
150, — we should have sufficient evidence 
that Jesus had taught a divine doctrine 
with authority, that he had Hved a grand 
life, and that he had touched men with vast 
inspiration. 

Though the Christians of that time were 
loaded down with immense superstitions, in- 
numerable errors, and absurd fancies, showing 
that no supernatural agent was operative in 
their midst, yet there was a something, — a 
moral ideal, an ardent hope, a method of life, 
a reverent faith, a humane sentiment, — which 
must have descended from a high source; 
while there was a loving attitude and personal 
devotion toward Jesus which revealed him as 
the chief source of the influence that made 
the Church the centre of a peculiar and su- 
perior life, and proved that great attractive 
power resided in him. Now, stopping here, 
we should know something of Jesus' teaching; 
for that oral tradition furnished Clement, Jus- 
tin Martyr, and the author of the Shepherd 
of Hermas, with sayings of the Master which 
are preserved for us in their works. But from 
these sources alone we should know very little 
of his life; his biography would be very 
brief, and the details of his career very few. 



yesus of Nazareth. 109 

Yet the evidences of his influence, the im- 
pression of his personahty, would stand out 
clear and distinct. 

If we now go to the first three Gospels, we 
find ourselves in the immediate vicinity of 
that character. We hear him in the syna- 
gogue at Capernaum, see him on the Gali- 
lean hillsides, and follow him to Jerusalem. 
Even these are only glimpses, and somewhat 
distant, too ; and yet they afford us a clearer 
view. Here and there a veil of mist drops 
between, and we say that this or that is le- 
gend. The greatest of living English Biblical 
scholars, Samuel Davidson, makes this state- 
ment respecting the presence of legend in 
the gospel records, — a statement remarkable 
alike for its reverent tone and for its critical 
insight: "A mythic haze encompasses the 
person, life, and discourses of Jesus; and 
sober criticism must set about the task of 
removing it reverently, respecting tradition 
without superstitiously adopting it. After 
this is done, there stands forth in colors more 
or less distinct, a person such as the world 
never saw before, — the living type of an 
ideal humanity, pure and perfect, destined to 
influence all times, to purify all peoples among 
whom his name is known, and to ennoble his 



no yesus Brought Back. 

followers by lifting them up to the measure 
of his stature/' ^ 

That legends should grow up about Jesus 
was inevitable. AH history shows a like ten- 
dency working about such sublime characters. 
And when we bear in mind the method by 
which our gospel records were produced, our 
wonder is, not that legend is there, but that 
it is there in so small quantity and of such 
sober quality. The fact that the Messianic 
hope of the time had been centred on Jesus, 
explains the origin of nearly all the legends 
which cluster about him ; and this fact makes 
it much easier to remove the legendary ele- 
ments from the Gospels, while it saves us 
from the necessity of attributing deliberate 
misrepresentation to those who told and com- 
piled the stories which form the record. The 
legendary parts of the Gospels, then, may be 
looked upon as the unconscious elaboration 
of the narrative of Jesus' life, brought about 
by the working of the belief that Jesus was 
the Messiah. Whatever is strongly colored 
with the Messianic hope may be eliminated 
as legendary in its present form. 

That circle of stories respecting Jesus' 
birth at Bethlehem are the spontaneous pro- 
1 Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i. p. 364. 



Jesus of Nazareth. 1 1 1 

duct of reverent love, working under the 
direction of the belief in him as Messiah. 
Little was known of Jesus' early life, but de- 
vout imagination could not leave the period 
blank; so that, starting from a prophecy 
which seemed to point to Bethlehem as his 
birthplace, and which they felt must have 
been fulfilled, his disciples, little by little, 
wove a legend full of the Master's spirit, 
which locates his birth at Bethlehem. It was 
not invented, — it simply grew; and what 
we have is not the original germ, but the 
full-grown product. That original germ may 
have been simply the suggestion that Jesus 
was born there, or ought to have been born 
there. The next disciple to tell the story 
went from suggestion to assertion, and added 
the Magi; the next brought in the angel 
choir, and little by little the other elements 
were added. The working motive all the 
while aimed to connect Jesus with the Messi- 
anic hope; and there were two generations 
in which the legend had time to grow before 
it was written out as we have it. We can 
only suggest how it grew; all we know is 
that legends do grow in this way, and that 
we have every reason to look upon this as a 
legend, because all the facts prove that Jesus 



112 yesus Brought Back. 

was born in Nazareth, while the story itself, 
by appealing to prophecy, shows its own ori- 
gin and motive. These birth-stories, then, are 
legends which have no root in reality, but 
were brought into existence to cover an un- 
known part of Jesus' life, and especially to 
cover it in a manner that would connect Jesus 
with the Messianic predictions. They bear 
the marks of legend on their very face, as such 
scholars as Meyer admit ; ^ and it is perfectly 
plain where they came from, when we con- 
sider how ardent was their belief in Jesus as 
Messiah, and when we consider also that they 
are in perfect keeping with the tendencies of 
that time. 

In such stories as those of the Temptation 
and the Transfiguration, we may believe that 
there was a nucleus of fact from which they 
started. Some such incidents may have hap- 
pened ; but the reality has been so obscured 
by poetic description that we cannot tell what 
actually occurred. And in this embellish- 
ment of the narrative we trace the influence 
of that ever present belief in Jesus' Messiah- 
ship which colored all their thoughts and 
shaped all materials to its own purposes. 

A majority of the accounts of miracles re- 
1 Commentary on Matthew, pp. 56-70. 



Jesus of Nazareth. 113 

late to healings, and especially the healing of 
demoniacs, — that is, persons whom we to-day- 
would call insane or epileptic. And undoubt- 
edly Jesus possessed the power to help those 
disorders, — what Canon Fremantle calls *' the 
restorative power of a great personality." ^ 
And any one acquainted with what Pinel ac- 
complished with violent lunatics by his purely 
moral method of treatment will not be in- 
clined to doubt the influence of Jesus over 
such persons, while he will see here no dis- 
play of supernatural power. And nearly all 
of these accounts have legendary touches, 
which were added by that Messianic belief in 
order to bring Jesus more closely into rela- 
tion with the predictions of what the Messiah 
must be and do. The healings of the dumb 
and the lame are especially enveloped with 
a legendary nimbus. For Isaiah prophesied, 
as they understood the passage, that Messiah 
would cause the dumb to speak and the lame 
..to walk. So that whatever Jesus may have 
done in this line would necessarily be enlarged 
upon to bring it into harmony with the sup- 
posed predictions of the ancient prophet. 
What Jesus is reported to have said, espe- 

1 *' Theology under Changed Conditions," Fortnightly Re- 
view, March, 1887. 



1 14 Jesus Brought Back, 

cially in Matthew xxiv.-xxv., and in Mark xiii., 
respecting the end of the world and his re- 
appearance as the judge of mankind, cannot 
be historical. These statements contain the 
coarse and materialistic elements of the Mes- 
sianic hope common, in that age, among cer- 
tain classes of Jews. The very phrases and 
imagery are those then current in the most 
fanatical section of Judaism. But the pre- 
eminence of Jesus lay in his moral and spirit- 
ual interpretation of the Messianic hope. In 
his more authentic addresses he always pict- 
ures the kingdom of heaven as the reign of 
righteousness. And it cannot be possible 
that he descended from that elevation and 
talked like one of the narrowest of his coun- 
trymen, as these statements would indicate. 
The truth is that here we have, not the mind 
of Jesus, but the thought of his reporters.^ 
There are then legendary materials in the 
gospel records which must be set aside as not 
descriptive of what Jesus ever actually did or 
said. But these passages are easily detected 
and removed, because they are just those 
parts where the Messianic coloring is most 
intense. Therefore passages which reveal an 

1 Davidson, Introduction to the New Testament, vol. 1. 
p. 401. 



Jesus of Nazareth. 115 

evident purpose to connect Jesus with the 
Messianic hope, in its common and crude in- 
terpretation, may be put aside without ques- 
tion as somewhat legendary in character. 

Yet after all these passages are removed 
from the gospel record — passages due to the 
legendary tendency working with the Mes- 
sianic bias of his reporters, — still a solid rem- 
nant is left, though it is doubtless impossi- 
ble to recover Jesus' exact image. We know 
that his life as a young man was that of an 
artisan; if not expressly stated we should 
know it from the character of his language, 
which is full of figurative expressions drawn 
from that vocation.^ He became, we cannot 
tell just when, a preacher of righteousness; 
and as such, he possessed and exhibited great 
independence of spirit, remarkable knowledge 
of human nature, a large capacity for using 
fresh and striking illustrations, and a moral 
insight which, with little regard for conven- 
tionalities, went straight to the heart of diffi- 
cult problems and enabled him to speak with 
commanding authority. 

The superhuman character attributed to 
Jesus has done much to obscure his human 
personality. Too little attention has been 
1 Hausrath, New Testament Times, vol. ii. p. 131. 



1 1 6 Jesus Brought Back. 

paid to the evidences of his intellectual power. 
The problem of his education is more difficult 
than that of Shakspeare, but it is plain that 
he possessed remarkable mental acumen and 
strength. His perceptive powers were very 
acute; the infinitely varied phenomena of 
nature and the minutest details of human life 
were known to him. His knowledge of the 
Hebrew Scriptures was large and accurate ; ^ 
he quoted its texts freely, but he applied them 
with an independence which showed great 
original thought and proved that he was no 
slavish follower of the Scribes. His rational 
faculty was highly developed; for only by 
the aid of reason could he have freed himself 
from so much of the fanaticism and supersti- 
tion of his time; while only by great intel- 
lectual penetration could he have defended 
himself from his enemies as he did, meeting 
them with questions and arguments which 
brought on them confusion, silence, and de- 
feat. All these facts show that Jesus was a 
man of remarkable mental power. 

And Jesus was by no means a soft and effem- 
inate man, which is the character ascribed to 
him by many popular representations. The 
ordinary portraiture of him presents Jesus 
in too passive an attitude, lacking in virility. 



Jesus of Nazareth. 117 

This conception has grown up from the feel- 
ing that a God-Man ought not to manifest 
such qualities as anger or resentment. But 
the conception which represents Jesus as 
over-abundant in sweetness yet lacking in 
rugged human strength is not true to the rec- 
ord. Jesus had the capacity of anger; he 
was a master of the vocabulary of denuncia- 
tion; he resented abuse and condemned in- 
justice; the flames of a righteous wrath were 
not strangers to his breast. Even the rever- 
ent Merriam goes so far as to say : ** Toward 
the Pharisees he used a fierceness of invective 
which indicates the natural limitations of a 
human reformer and a young and Jewish 
reformer." ^ 

And yet, looking at Jesus' character as a 
whole, the qualities that appear pre-eminent 
are infinite kindness and compassion. He 
stands before us as a man who was tender to 
the poor, the lowly, the sinful ; the friend of the 
outcast, but ever using his sympathy to con- 
vince of sin and to inspire w4th hope ; a man 
who reverenced the sanctity of human nature 
in whatever condition found, appreciated its 
divine yearnings, and sought to heal its woe 

1 Merriam, " The Character of Jesus," in The Way of 
Life, p. 46. 



1 1 8 Jesus Brought Back. 

and unfold its nobler possibilities. The Gos- 
pels, which are more the fragmentary impres- 
sions of a great life than its clear portrait, 
present Jesus as one who went about doing 
good in a very simple, unselfish, and practi- 
cal manner ; who awoke in men wherever he 
went the slumbering divinity of their hearts ; 
and who gathered a company of disciples 
that hung upon his words and grew strong in 
his presence. 

Jesus, being conscious of his equality with 
those who framed the Mosaic laws, consid- 
ered himself entitled to examine and pass 
upon what he found there, *^ in order to free 
the grain from the chaff and to loosen the 
imperishable truth from the temporal form 
which held it enclosed and threatened to sti- 
fle it.'' ^ He was therefore able, in a word, 
both to practise himself and to recommend 
in his preaching to others the purely spiritual 
religion of the heart. We see in Jesus a 
great teacher guided by free reason, and yet 
a reformer tempered with reverence. The 
Gospels picture him as indifferent about the 
stricter Sabbath regulations, as free in his 
handling of the traditions of the fathers, as 
unmindful of the Levitical rules in his inter- 
1 Kuenen, Religion of Israel, vol. iii. p. 279. 



Jesus of Nazareth. 119 

course with people ; and yet he claimed to 
stand for the essential truth of the Law and 
the Prophets. 

This freedom and independence brought 
him into conflict with the authorities. But 
the details of his closing days are uncertain ; 
all we positively know is that he went to 
Jerusalem and was crucified. The story of 
his conflict with the Pharisees is obscurely 
told; we only have glimpses of his trial, 
which must have been very irregular.^ The 
record of the crucifixion is contradictory and 
fragmentary.^ Of Jesus* teachings as given 
in the Gospels, we may be sure that the Ser- 
mon on the Mount is substantially authentic, 
though a collection of sayings delivered on 
different occasions. The parables, as a rule, 
are doubtless given about as Jesus spoke 
them; while the short, striking sayings may 
be regarded as nearest his exact words. 

The epistles of Paul, though written many 
years before the Gospels, do not give us so 

1 A very ingenious and suggestive theory respecting the 
motives which brought about and the course of events 
which led up to Jesus' death has been presented by Rabbi 
^Vise, in a pamphlet entitled, The Martyrdom of Jesus 
Christ. See also " The Trial of Jesus,'' Contemporary Re- 
view, vol. XXX. 1877. 

*^ Keim, Jesus of Nazara, vol vi. pp. 115-244. 



1 20 Jesus Brought Back. 

clear a picture of Jesus. Paul did not know 
Jesus personally, and to him the biographi- 
cal details respecting Jesus seem to have had 
little attraction. This great apostle gave his 
attention to nothing in the history of Jesus 
but his death and resurrection. Of his cru- 
cifixion Paul wrote no description; while he 
gave no exact information respecting the 
resurrection itself, but contented himself with 
recording a few instances of what were con- 
sidered his re-appearances. And Paul passed 
by the teachings of Jesus with scarcely a 
brief allusion. But this silence of Paul's let- 
ters was doubtless due, not to indifference or 
ignorance on his part, but to the fact that such 
of his writings as we possess are simply letters 
written with a definite reference to certain 
passing events, to persons who, being familiar 
with the story of Jesus, did not need instruc- 
tion on that point. And, moreover, to Paul, 
Jesus was the centre of a cosmical system, 
the actor in a great world-drama; so that the 
features of the historic Nazarene are in his 
letters overlaid and obscured by Paul's concep- 
tion of Jesus as a cosmical being, or the Sec- 
ond Adam. And yet, just here are evidences 
of Jesus' wonderful influence. Jesus must 
have been an immense personality and have 



Jestis of Nazareth. 1 2 1 

produced a powerful impression, or Paul would 
not have made him the centre of his marvel- 
lous speculations. Thus, while with Paul's 
letters alone we should have no biography of 
Jesus at all, yet we should see in them the im- 
press and inspiration of a sublime character. 

The results which we reach, then, are these : 
in the Gospels we have many details of Jesus* 
life, but nothing like a satisfactory record of 
his career; we cannot be sure that he did all 
that is reported of him, while we must reject 
some things recorded in those narratives. 
We cannot be certain that we have his exact 
words in many places, or even that we al- 
ways possess his exact thought; and yet 
everywhere — in Gospels, Pauline letters, and 
the Church itself, — we trace an impression 
which proves a supreme personality. 

This obscurity on the one hand and this 
profound impression on the other make it 
difficult for us to define his relations to his 
age ; and yet certain things are clear. Some 
writers have made Jesus the disciple of Hil- 
lel ; ^ and Clifford even went so far as to call 
his gospel the ethics of Hillel.^ But the 

1 For the best estimate of Hillel, see Ewald, History of 
Israel, vi. pp. 13-36. 

2 Lectures and Essays, vol. ii. p. 229. 



122 Jesus Brought Back. 

differences between the two are decisive evi- 
dence against such a theory. Hillel was a 
very gentle, pure, and earnest teacher, an 
honor to the Hebrew race and an ornament 
to humanity. He taught the Golden Rule 
in nearly the same form as we find it in the 
Gospel, and some of his observations upon 
life are remarkably wise and helpful; yet 
while his tendency was liberal, he had ex- 
tricated neither of his feet wholly from the 
fetters of tradition, though he walked with 
more freedom than his fellow-scribes. But 
Hillel is chiefly interesting because he shows 
that an age and people which could produce 
him could by a supreme effort produce a 
Jesus of Nazareth. And still Jesus was in no 
sense a disciple of Hillel. Their methods 
were different; one appealed to the heart, 
the other to a text; and all the world lies 
between. The one made life a free inspira- 
tion, the other made life a conformity to law. 
The one still insisted on the Levitical order 
with great emphasis, the other put supreme 
emphasis on purity of heart; and though 
the moral teachings of both present striking 
similarities, yet, as Oort remarks, two men 
may almost agree in such precepts and yet 
have radically unlike views of life, because 



yesus of Nazareth. 123 

they come to such precepts from opposite 
directions, — as was the case here. Hillel 
reached the Golden Rule by approaching 
life from the side of Mosaism; but Jesus 
reached the gospel by interpreting life from 
the standpoint of universal humanity. Their 
words were similar, but the men themselves 
were radically unlike in method and spirit; 
and the system of each would necessarily 
bear vastly different fruit, as history has 
shown.^ Still, these differences no more 
warrant the supposition of Jesus' super- 
natural rank than Garrison's superiority of 
moral insight over that of the clergy of his 
day warrants a claim of miraculous character 
for him. Plato's superiority to the Sophists 
is hardly less than that of Jesus to Hillel; 
and yet no such claim is made for Plato. 

It has been claimed that Jesus was closely 
related to the Essenes,^ that monastic order 
of Jewish reformers to which John the Bap- 
tist undoubtedly belonged. These Essenes 
formed a communistic organization, semi- 

^ For a discussion of this interesting subject, see Oort, 
" The Talmud and the New Testament," Modern Review, 
1883 ; and Delitsch, " Hillel and Jesus," Andover Review, 
Oct. and Nov., 1884. 

2 For a description of the Essenes, see Schiirer, The 
Jewish People, vol. ii. § 30. 



124 Jesus Brought Back, 

secret in character, to which persons entered 
by baptism, and in which they practised great 
simpHcity and austerity of manners. The 
Essenes rejected private property, oaths, the 
temple-sacrifice, and marriage; they shunned 
all defilements, and carried the practice of 
purification to great extremes ; they preached 
non-resistance ; and they put great emphasis 
upon the humanities. Now, some of these 
characteristics are similar to those of the gos- 
pel ; and yet in many particulars Jesus' life 
and teaching directly contradicted the Es- 
senic regulations. Our conclusion, then, is 
that Jesus was in no sense an Essene, though 
that religious movement shows the presence 
at that time of reformatory efforts in the gen- 
eral direction of Christianity, and he was un- 
doubtedly indirectly influenced by it.^ 

The assertion that Jesus studied in Egypt 
is a baseless fancy too absurd to need even a 
passing mention; while the theory that he 
was only the retailer of Buddhist wisdom is 
a perfectly wild and unsupported vagary.^ 

1 For discussion of Jesus' relation to Essenes, see " Es- 
senism and Christianity," Unitarian Review, vol. xi. p. 595. 

2 The conclusions of the soundest scholarship respect- 
ing the relation of Jesus to Buddhism have been stated by 
J. Estlin Carpenter, " Buddhism and the New Testament," 
Nineteenth Century, Dec. 1880. 



JesMS of Nazareth. 125 

Jesus was rather the native product of Israel ; 
his garments were wet with the dews of Gal- 
ilee, and his speech was full of its local 
coloring. And in his intensely moral, prac- 
tical, and non-speculative teaching, we have 
nothing approaching Oriental theosophy. 

Indeed, Jesus was so much the child of Ju- 
daism that he shared some of the limitations 
of his age : he believed with his people, in 
devils and demoniacal possessions; and in 
the interpretation of Scripture he approached 
the false methods of the rabbis then current. 
Even Toy remarks : *' As an individual man, 
he had of necessity a definite, restricted in- 
tellectual outfit and outlook; and these could 
be only those of his day and generation." ^ 
We must therefore conceive of Jesus as di- 
rectly related to the moral and intellectual 
climate of his time. The reverent and can- 
did Keim concludes : '' Notwithstanding all 
the preponderance of moral conquests and 
excellences, the actual facts of his moral life, 
like his confessions, also reveal at isolated 
points the existence of human limitations." ^ 

Jesus stood on the platform of Hebrew 
piety, Greek humanism, and Roman civility. 

1 Toy, Quotations in the New Testament, p. xxviii. 

2 Jesus of Nazara, vol. vi. p. 412. 



1 26 Jesus Brought Back. 

But he was something more than the plat- 
form on which he stood. These various ele- 
ments were gathered up in him and fused in 
a personality which was indeed new, and yet 
it was a personality dependent like others 
upon its environment. Like all such great 
characters, Jesus was the product of human- 
ity, crowned with originality.^ But the rela- 
tions in which he stood to the world were 
not different in kind from those of other men. 
It is often urged that Jesus must have been 
divine in some peculiar sense, because the 
elements of such a character did not exist in 
Judaism at that time, and because Jesus was so 
original that he must have been supernatural. 
But this claim can be even apparently estab- 
lished only by ignoring the higher elements 
of Judaism and by investing Jesus with ficti- 
tious or legendary features. Moreover, all 
such arguments ignore the possibilities of 
human nature as well as the plainest facts of 
history. For if great men did not naturally 
bring original elements into civilization, there 
could be no such thing as general progress. 
Again and again have characters arisen that 
appear as unrelated to their environment as 
Jesus to his. We would make no compari- 
1 Hausrath, New Testament Times, vol. ii. p. 147. 



yesus of Nazareth. 127 

sons and suggest no equality; but it is obvi- 
ous that Socrates at Athens was as unique as 
Jesus at Jerusalem. 

Bushnell's assertion ^ that the character of 
Jesus forbids his possible classification with 
men, was not made by the immediate fol- 
lowers of the Nazarene ; and the only way to 
defend it is to elevate Jesus into the region 
of the unhistorical. We would not attempt 
to bring Jesus down to the level of ordinary 
men ; he was no mei'e man ; but we do con- 
tend that the distance between him and other 
great prophets is no greater than that be- 
tween a Socrates and the lowest savage; so 
that we classify him with men and bring his 
character within the limits of human possi- 
bility. To do otherwise violates the funda- 
mental law of history and robs Jesus of 
significance as our example. For if Jesus 
is the perfection of our type of being, then 
there is infinite encouragement for us in his 
superior life ; but if he is a mysterious God- 
man, then the distance between us and him 
places him too far off for an example. We 
might look and wonder, but we could not 
find encouragement to say, *' I will try to be 
all that myself" And that Jesus considered 
1 Nature and the Supernatural, chap. x. 



128 JesMs Brought Back. 

himself the product of humanity, closely- 
related to the Judaic dispensation, is the 
impression which we trace throughout the 
first three Gospels. 

Jesus placed himself in connection with the 
Messianic hope of his people. Now, this was 
a very natural thing for him to do, for the 
aspirations of his race were centred in that 
ideal, — so that Jesus must somehow take up 
the great theme of popular debate and give it 
some interpretation. To work at all, he must 
define his Messianic doctrine. And though 
we deal here with a difficult problem, as the 
Gospels through which we look are lenses 
colored with the Messianic hope as it existed 
in the minds of his disciples and reporters, 
yet our conclusion is that Jesus did in some 
way claim to be the realization of that 
Messianic ideal. And this claim involved 
the assertion of nothing more than human 
rank. 

But just when or how this Messianic con- 
sciousness arose in Jesus or was proclaimed 
by him, it is impossible to state with any defi- 
niteness. Some have supposed that Jesus be- 
gan his ministry simply as a moral teacher ; 
and that in the course of his experiences, 
toward the close of his life, he came to iden- 



Jesus of Nazareth. 129 

tify himself with this Messianic hope. But 
the traditions are too meagre to make this con- 
clusion certain, — while the absence of chro- 
nological order in the Gospels themselves 
makes it impossible to use their statements in 
support of any such theory; for what is 
there set down first may have belonged to the 
close of his life. The only certainty seems to 
be this, that Jesus gave a purely spiritual and 
non-political interpretation to the Messianic 
ideal. It seems equally clear also that he 
looked upon a certain kind of life like his 
own as the realization of that ideal. The 
kingdom of heaven, of which he so often 
spoke, is pictured as a personal life rather 
than as a social order, — not only a way of 
living, but a quality of life. 

That he founded a definite Messianic soci- 
ety, or Christian republic, with special rites, 
dogmas, and tests of citizenship, is very im- 
probable; and such intimations in the Gos- 
pels are doubtless the reflections of a later 
age, incorporated by the final editor into the 
original tradition. And when he insisted 
upon fellowship with himself or devotion to 
himself, he did not take the position of an au- 
tocrat, but simply recognized the fact that 
only those who attached themselves to him 

9 



1 30 Jesus Brought Back. 

personally could become thoroughly impreg- 
nated with his spirit. Therefore, after making 
due allowance for the Messianic coloring of 
the Gospels, derived from the Messianic bias 
of his disciples who were the reporters, 
the truth found seems to be contained in 
some such statement as this : Jesus, realizing 
the power of personal influence, appreciating 
the necessity to his movement of a personal 
centre, feeling the magnitude of his own pow- 
ers, and interpreting the Messianic ideal as a 
quality of individual life, did claim to be its 
fulfilment; by which he meant simply that 
its realization was found in his kind of life, 
and also that those who lived as he did were 
in the kingdom of heaven. And when Jesus 
demanded devotion to himself, discipleship, 
as the way to that kingdom of heaven, he 
acted in no exclusive or domineering spirit, 
and had reference to no supernatural relations 
betAveen himself and his followers. 

Our general conclusion, then, is that Jesus 
was the product of humanity, affiliated by 
historic relations to his people, and limited in 
many respects by the mental horizon of his 
time; and yet that he possessed a genuine 
originality, which he nowhere better illustra- 
ted than by teaching that the Messianic hope 



yesics of Nazareth, 131 

must be realized through a life like his own ; 
that the kingdom of heaven is a spirit and 
method of life.^ 

That Jesus possessed sublime elements and 
mighty powers is clear ; but how shall we de- 
scribe the character of his pre-eminence or 
explain the source of his influence? It ex- 
plains nothing to say that he was God. That 
is a simple confession of ignorance. It is no 
explanation to say that God makes the grass 
grow. One does not explain the independ- 
ence of America by saying that Washington 
was inspired. Men imagine that the assertion 
of Jesus' deity clears up the whole subject, 
but that is as irrational as the position of the 
old Persians, who, when they could no longer 
tell who wrote the Avesta, asserted that God 
wrote it. Some say that the pre-eminence of 
Jesus lay in what he did, the work that he 
wrought. But Jesus was not an organizer, 
like Caesar or Muhammed. He founded no 
system. He drilled no emissaries. He elab- 
orated no machinery. His kingdom of heaven 
had no frame-work. His movement was so 
destitute of all organization that the wonder 
has been that it ever lived. Even the re- 

1 Hausrath, New Testament Times, vol. ii. pp. 142-156. 
Keim, Jesus of Nazara, vol. iii. pp. 48-92. 



132 Jesus Brought Back. 

markable cures which he may have performed 
would not have given him much pre-emi- 
nence in an age so credulous and so expec- 
tant of wonders ; and even such marvels are 
not the source of moral influence, which is 
the phenomenon to be explained. 

Others describe his work as the introduc- 
tion of a new economy into the universe, the 
presentation of his blood as a sedative to 
God's anger, and as a charm to man's nature. 
He effected, they say, a supernatural recon- 
ciliation between God and man. But this is a 
far-fetched, cumbersome, materialistic scheme, 
which presents more difficulties than it solves. 
The operations of that new economy are not 
manifest in human affairs. The onward ways 
of Providence are in the same stately courses 
of law as before. The cross is no hiatus in 
nature between old and new. No new fac- 
ulty is discoverable in human nature as the 
consequent of his mission. This scheme of 
blood atonement was not taught by Jesus ; it 
is unverified by experience, while it reflects 
no credit upon God, and confers no honor 
upon man. 

Others say that the secret of Jesus* power 
lay in his message ; he taught a new doctrine. 
We grant the sublimity of his teachings ; but 



Jesus of Nazareth. 133 

nearly all his beautiful utterances had already- 
been given to the world. They were not 
obeyed, yet they were common property. 
His sayings, therefore, do not describe his 
pre-eminence. Sayings are outward, frag- 
mentary, static, and can never serve even as 
an exact index to the inner life. As John 
Morley says : '^ A man is always so much more 
than his words, as we feel every day of our 
lives ; what he says has its momentum indefi- 
nitely multiplied, or reduced to nullity, by the 
impression that the hearer, for good reasons 
or bad, happens to have formed of the spirit 
and moral size of the speaker.*' ^ There is 
an ideal of life, an aspiration of soul, a fra- 
grance of sanctity, which no words can record. 
There are riches of character for which no 
tongue has a language. Jesus' sayings do not 
explain his power. We must look behind the 
message to the soul which created it. 

The excellence of his personality is our 
key to the mystery. The power of Jesus was 
not in what he said^ but in what he was. It 
was his rich personality. There is a personal 
power, independent of deed or word, which 
is an indescribable but efficient force. It is 
the attraction which inheres in character, as 
1 Voltaire, p. 6. 



1 34 yesus Brought Back. 

magnetism inheres in a loadstone. Moral 
greatness diffuses an exhilarating atmosphere. 
It is the power of personality that moves 
and transforms the world. It is the manhood 
working in the deed and speaking in the word 
that makes them significant. A great char- 
acter sheds abroad an influence as cheering, 
as quickening, and as luminous as sunlight. 
It is not what Jesus organized, not what he 
suffered, not what he said, — we must look in 
the direction of his personality for an ex- 
planation of his influence. It was the sweet 
majesty of his manhood that moved the peo- 
ple. Dr. Hedge thus defines the importance 
of personality: ''It depends not so much on 
the clearness and fulness of the revelation 
as on the personality with which it is asso- 
ciated, whether or not the revelation shall 
become an historic dispensation. The moral 
intuitions of Plato far transcended those of 
Muhammed, but the moral force, the mo- 
mentum of personality, the quality of soul 
in Muhammed exceeded the genius of Plato. 
Adopted by providence, the slender thought 
and vast soul of the Arab have rallied around 
them the fifth part of the human race, whilst 
the fuller revelation of the Greek could only 
modify Gentile and Christian theology with 



Jesus of Nazareth . 135 

its intellectual leaven/' ^ Men say that the 
Gospels do not explain the power of Jesus 
over men. Of course they do not; they 
simply record the fact. 

It was not because he uttered the Golden 
Rule that Jesus taught '' as one having au- 
thority," but because he himself was a Golden 
Rule incarnate. It was not because he spake 
the Beatitudes that the people heard him 
gladly, but because his personality was a Be- 
atitude. It was not because he taught in par- 
ables that they loved him, but because his 
manhood touched them with inspiration. In 
Jesus people found and felt a deep, tender 
piety manifested as a free spirit of life. There 
stood a spotless purity, conscious of God as 
Father, and there yearned a boundless hu- 
manity conscious of kinship with all men. 
There indeed was absolute piety and absolute 
unselfishness, and in that fact lay the secret of 
his power. It may well be doubted whether 
Jesus told the Samaritan woman anything 
new. It was a common saying " that God is 
a spirit and must be worshipped in spirit ; " 
but what thrilled her was his personality ; she 

^ Ways of the Spirit, p. 142. See also, Corson, *' The 
Idea of Personality," in The Browning Society Papers, 
part iii. 



1 36 yestis Brought Back. 

stood in a new presence. Imagine the in- 
spiration that would flow from a Channing as 
he talked to a rough country lad. She, in 
like manner, felt Jesus' richness of life, the 
new strange sweetness of voice, the calm spir- 
itual eye; no wonder she felt that she had 
found the Christ. 

Thus Jesus established by the power of his 
personality a new order of manhood. And if 
printing began an era in literature, and the 
application of steam an era in commerce, how 
much more shall we say that Jesus began an 
era in the spiritual life of humanity. He in- 
troduced a new type of moral architecture. 
He presented a character adorned with new 
graces and endowed with new powers. His 
life was superior to the visions which had 
filled the mind of the prophet or the philos- 
opher, and yet its superiority was evident 
and welcome to the common people even as 
the art of the Renaissance was more highly 
appreciated by the masses than that of the 
Dark Ages. His personality was a master- 
piece of moral genius, and as truly revolu- 
tionized religion as the steam-engine has the 
world's commerce. Martineau states this 
truth in these words : ''The power of Christ's 
religion is not in his precepts, but in his per- 



Jesus of Nazareth. 137 

son; not in the memory of his maxims, but 
in the image of himself." ^ 

The Greeks had an order of manhood, 
which was the worship of Beauty, — a glori- 
ous estate in its best manifestation, but defi- 
cient on the side of pity and reverence. The 
Romans had an order of manhood, which was 
the worship of Power, — victorious in practical 
affairs, but destitute of capacity to satisfy the 
heart and organize philanthropy. The Jews 
had an order of manhood, which was confor- 
mity to Holiness, — a strict ideal which, how- 
ever, often dropped to mechanical formalism 
from lack of inward power. But in the per- 
sonality of Jesus was presented a new order 
of manhood, — the growth of the soul into 
Beauty, Power, and Holiness, — the all-suffi- 
ciency of Inner-Life, interpreted as love to 
God and love to man. 

1 Liverpool Lectures, lee. v. p. 4. 



THE GLAD TIDINGS. 



REFERENCES. 

A. Jesus' Doctrine respecting the Kingdom of Heaven: 

1. Hausrath, New Testament Times, vol. ii. pp. 142-169. 

2. Keim, Jesus of Nazara, vol. iii. pp. 48-134. 

3. Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, ch. vii. 

4. Martineau, Endeavors, sermons ix., x. 

5. Picton, The Religion of Jesus, lectures ii.,iii. 

6. Reuss, Apostolic Age, vol. i. pp. 127-233. 

7. Seeley, Ecce Homo, ch. iii., vii., and xiv. 

8. Ewald, History of Israel, vol. vi. pp. 200-218. 

9. Strauss, Life of Jesus, second part, ch. vi. 
10. Neander, Life of Christ, pp. 240-254. 

B. The Differences between Jesus' Gospel and Evan- 

gelical Theology : 

1. Differences in General: 

(i) Parker, Discourse on Religion, book iii. 

(2) Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, ch. ix. 

(3) Greg, Creed of Christendom, Introduction and ch. xi. 

2. Differences in views of God : 

(i) Reville, The Deity of Christ, ch. i. 

(2) Clarke, Orthodoxy : Its Truths and Errors, ch. viii. 

(3) The Divinity of Christ : A Reply to Liddon, ch. iv. 

3. Differences in views of Salvation : 

(i) Hedge, Reason in Religion, book ii. ch. vii. 

(2) Brooke, Unity of God and Man, sermons vii.-ix, 

(3) Picton, The Religion of Jesus, lectures iii., iv. 

4. Differences in views of Destiny : 

(i) Alger, Doctrine of a Future Life, part iii. ch. vi. 
(2) Farrar, The Eternal Hope. 



THE GLAD TIDINGS. 

WE encounter several difficulties in at- 
tempting to describe the teachings of 
Jesus. In the first place, Jesus wrote nothing 
himself; we have no original statements of 
his thoughts as he would have set them down 
himself. We have nothing but second-hand 
reports of his teaching; and even the most 
careful narratives are unsatisfactory. It would 
be much harder to describe the central ideas 
of Channing and Emerson if we had none 
of their writings ; and in the case of Jesus, 
who spoke in a distant past, under conditions 
and amidst forms of thought hard to repro- 
duce by the imagination, the difficulty is made 
very much greater. 

Again, we do not have the full or system- 
atic report of an immediate disciple. The 
disciples preached Jesus, and the oral reports 
of their preaching travelled in the memory of 
the Church for one or two generations before 
they were written out in that form in which 
we possess them. The Gospels themselves 



142 Jesus Brought Back. 

show us that the disciples often misunder- 
stood Jesus, because they were so much infe- 
rior to him ; therefore any report which they 
could have made would be more or less 
colored by their own thoughts. And Jesus' 
sayings, as thus reported, during their travel 
as oral tradition, passed through several 
transforming or refracting media. For we 
must bear in mind that those were times of 
intense excitement, when the person of Je- 
sus was the subject of bitter strife and sharp 
controversy. And as light is bent from its 
course by the humidity of the atmosphere, 
so Jesus' thought would in certain ways be 
deflected and obscured by any impurities in 
the mental atmosphere of primitive Christian- 
ity. And such refracting media did then 
exist, as the early Church was not without its 
prejudices and superstitions. 

Three such refracting elements or deflect- 
ing tendencies may be mentioned. The Mes- 
sianic hope created an idealization of Jesus in 
the direction of certain dominant expecta- 
tions. There was a popular notion that the 
Messiah would do and say certain things; 
and as Jesus came into relation with this Mes- 
sianic hope, men naturally saw him through 
this refracting medium of their expectations, 



The Glad Tidings. 143 

and so read into his words their own Messi- 
anic notions. And this Messianic coloring 
naturally became stronger, the longer the oral 
tradition travelled through the Messianic me- 
dium. In this way some of Jesus' sayings 
were reshaped, and some of his parables 
came to be misapplied. 

A case in point is the parable of the Good 
King, or the Sheep and Goats. If we look 
simply at the body of the parable^ as it 
stands in our record, it is plain enough that 
Jesus told the story to enforce the necessity 
of unselfish, loving service as the essence of 
religion. But the Messianic tendency gave it 
a brief introduction which makes it apply to 
the final judgment at Jesus' second coming: 
*'When the Son of man shall come in his 
glory, and all the holy angels with him, then 
shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: 
And before him shall be gathered all nations : 
and he shall separate them one from another, 
as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the 
goats." Now this addition was so unskilfully 
made that there is no difficulty in separating 
it from the original. The violent transition 
from ** Son of man" to '* Then shall the king 
say unto them," — from the standpoint of 
1 Matthew xxv. 34-45. 



144 Jesus Brought Back. 

final judgment to the standpoint of a simple 
narrative of human affairs, — shows clearly 
how Jesus' parable of duty was changed by 
tradition into an apocalyptic vision. 

Again, there was in the primitive Church an 
ascetic tendency, a violent hatred of riches ; 
an ideal of life championed by a party after- 
wards known as the Ebionites. They picked 
up whatever Jesus said against riches; and 
by neglecting his deeper thought, by drop- 
ping modifying phrases, and by over-empha- 
sis of particular sayings, they reshaped his 
teaching and made of it in many respects a 
new gospel. They were able to understand 
only according to their capacity ; they caught 
at what agreed with their own ideas, and by 
laying hold of certain phrases exclusively, 
they wandered far from the true doctrines of 
Jesus. An illustration of this tendency is 
found in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, 
where one man is put in heaven simply be- 
cause he was poor, while another is sent to 
hell chiefly because he was rich. This does 
not sound like Jesus, who insisted so often 
upon heart-life rather than upon the mere cir- 
cumstances of one's career. Jesus often spoke 
against the corrupting influence of riches, the 
worship of Mammon, but there is nothing in 



The Glad Tidings. 145 

this story, as it now stands, of that spiritual 
discernment combined with a large common- 
sense, which characterizes the parables as a 
rule. The heartlessness and crude sense of 
justice contained in the words put into Abra- 
ham's mouth, '^ Son, remember that thou in 
thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and 
likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is 
comforted, and thou art tormented," ^ repre- 
sent a much lower plane than that occupied 
by Jesus. And the concluding words, '' If 
they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither 
will they be persuaded though one rose from 
the dead," ^ give evidence of a late date, be- 
cause they are an attempt to explain why the 
Jews did not believe in the Risen One. Evi- 
dently, then, the Ebionitic tendency first re- 
shaped the body of the parable, and later the 
anti-Jewish tendency added an application.^ 

There are many other evidences of the 
working of the same tendency. In Luke, the 
Beatitude as given by Matthew, '' Blessed 
are the poor in spirit,"^ is shortened to 
'' Blessed be ye poor." ^ Here the Ebionitic 

1 Luke xvi. 25. 2 Luke xvi. 31. 

^ Davidson, Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i, 
p. 470. 

* Matthew v. 3. ^ Luke vi. 20. 

10 



146 yesus B^^ought Back. 

tendency cut off the phrase *' in spirit," and 
thus narrowed the scope and obscured the 
meaning of Jesus' message. We are forced 
to this conclusion because it is rational to 
attribute the best to Jesus, and because we 
know that just this crude spirit was at work 
among his followers, who would naturally 
make just this mistake. 

Still again : there was a violent contest be- 
tween Paul and the party of James, respecting 
the Levitical law and the general scope of 
the new religion. Paul insisted that the law 
was abolished in Christ, so he gave the gos- 
pel a catholic interpretation; while James 
clung to the Levitical law and claimed that 
Gentiles must become Jews before they could 
be Christians. This contest raged while the 
teachings of Jesus were still carried as oral 
tradition ; and those who first wrote out the 
gospel-traditions were somewhat controlled 
by these opposing views. And this fact ac- 
counts for many of the discrepancies in our 
Gospels. The teaching of Jesus, after having 
been passed through a narrow mind like that 
of James, would wear a different aspect than 
when passed through a catholic mind like 
that of Paul. And such differences separate 
Matthew and Luke, as has been pointed 



The Glad Tidings. 147 

out in the chapter on the Growth of the 
Gospels. 

As we listen, then, we hear not only Jesus' 
voice, but also mingling with it various apos- 
tolic echoes. The reporters, in giving their 
best report, reported somewhat of their own 
thought with that of their Master. And these 
personal tendencies of the reporters had a 
wider scope, not only from the fact that 
Jesus' teaching was so long carried in oral 
tradition, but also because Jesus' large use of 
figurative and paradoxical language made 
such transformations easy. It is only by 
making allowance for such refractions of Je- 
sus' teaching, as it passed through the minds 
of his reporters, that we can do justice to 
him or hope to understand him. 

To state the facts in a different shape : We 
know that certain notions and tendencies pos- 
sessed the minds of Jesus' disciples, — a ma- 
terialistic Messianic expectation, a prejudice 
against riches, an acrimonious controversy 
respecting the Levitical law. Any reports 
made by such men under these conditions, 
even with the most honest intentions, would 
be distorted or colored in the direction of 
such personal limitations. Therefore it is 
rational to claim for Jesus the sublimer ideas 



148 Jesus Brought Back. 

of the Gospels, while we attribute to his dis- 
ciples those cruder notions which are in line 
with those personal tendencies of his re- 
porters, and which would inevitably show 
themselves in such reports. We must insist 
upon Jesus' superiority and consistency; 
and when, at the close of a paragraph full of 
remarkable spirituality, we come across some 
crude Messianic notion which contradicts the 
preceding spirituality, and which we know 
was common in his day in that section of so- 
ciety where his disciples moved ; or when, 
in the midst of a forcible plea for Inner Life 
as the real kingdom of heaven, we come 
across some over-emphasis of mere outward 
poverty just in the line of that Ebionism of 
some of his followers, — in such cases we un- 
hesitatingly say that in the latter parts we 
have the mind of his disciples rather than his 
own. 

This is a recognized principle of historical 
and literary criticism; and unless we make 
such allowances we are obliged to lower our 
estimate of Jesus, or resort to fanciful and 
forced expedients to do away with these dis- 
crepancies. And the errors into which inter- 
preters of the Gospel have fallen are largely 
due to a neglect of this principle. The only 



The Glad Tidings, 149 

way to make an approximately clear or true 
delineation of Jesus* thought is to attribute 
some of these cruder notions to that refrac- 
tion of the oral tradition, as it passed through 
the disciples' minds and took on some of 
their own imperfect opinions. 

We do not insist upon this elimination in 
order to save the perfection of Jesus, but 
because the facts warrant it and the canons 
of criticism demand it. Indeed, we would 
not dogmatically affirm Jesus' absolute free- 
dom from intellectual or even moral error. 
He seems to have accepted the fictitious de- 
monology of his countrymen ; he pictured a 
terrible hell, though he did not prolong em- 
phasis upon eternal punishment, after the 
manner of a John Calvin, Jeremy Taylor, or 
Jonathan Edwards. His wholesale denunci- 
ations of the Pharisees as a class seem upon 
investigation to have been hardly deserved. 
Even these limitations are now admitted by 
such conservative critics as Meyer, Weiss, 
and Hausrath. But what we do insist upon 
is this : that Jesus be interpreted by the best 
in the record, and that we eliminate those 
discordant elements in a line with the well- 
known prejudices and errors of his disciples 
and -reporters. 



150 Jesus Brought Back. 

Moreover, in studying the Gospels we must 
keep in view Jesus' poetic temperament, and 
his love of paradox. What Jesus said respect- 
ing almsgiving, non-resistance, and indififer- 
ence to thrift, must be understood according 
to the spirit in which he spoke. They are 
not universal rules of life, and were not so 
presented by Jesus. But in all these sayings 
there is a nucleus of inner meaning, which is 
sacred and enduring truth. Among unchari- 
table, quarrelsome, and worldly people it was 
well to lay stress upon benevolence, forbear- 
ance, and care for something besides Mam- 
mon; and these graces are eternally obliga- 
tory and beautiful; but the particular form 
under which Jesus pictured them, the shell of 
words in which he enclosed them, — giving your 
cloak to him who asks your coat, turning the 
other cheek also to be smitten, and taking no 
thought of the morrow, — these are oriental- 
isms of language in which Jesus delighted, ' 
and we must listen to him in the oriental 
spirit. To apply them literally is really to miss 
his thought and degrade him as a teacher. 
They are only highly colored pictures of the 
necessity of love, forbearance, and spirituality. 
Jesus had too much practical insight to fall into 
arid fanaticism, and these fragmentary sayings 



The Glad Tidings. 1 5 1 

in condemnation of the worldly spirit must be 
read in the hght of his fundamental thought 
respecting the kingdom of heaven.^ 

Having thus prepared ourselves to put 
aside some of the cruder features of the 
record as a sediment deposited from the 
minds of his reporters, let us try to lay 
hold of Jesus' central thought. There was a 
phrase then current around which patriotic 
hopes and wild fancies, the sober yearnings 
of the cultivated, the spiritual thought of a 
Hillel, the narrow notions of the Levite, all 
circled, — '' the kingdom of heaven ; '' and 
just as a Channing and an Emerson had to 
say something about that theme uppermost 
in their day, — abolition, — so had Jesus in 
his teachings to place himself in relation with 
the Messianic hope which occupied the popu- 
lar mind. He had to take up this phrase, 
** kingdom of heaven," and give it some in- 
terpretation. Here we find, then, both his 
'starting-point and his point of departure from 
the popular doctrines of his day. And if 
we carefully study his interpretation of this 
phrase we shall discover not only what was 
central, but what was superior, in his teaching 
or gospel. 

1 Greg, Creed of Christendom, introduction to fifth edition. 



1 5 2 y^i"^^ Brought Back. 

There already existed three interpretations 
of this phrase : the Levitical, which viewed 
the Messianic time as a spiritual expansion of 
Israel as a people, to be brought about by 
that moral and ritual purity which would issue 
from perfect obedience to the Mosaic law; the 
political, which looked forward to a revolu- 
tion, the overthrow of Rome, the exaltation of 
Jerusalem through the enthronement there of 
a mighty king; the ascetic, which denounced 
riches because they are so closely associated 
with vice, and which set forth poverty as the 
way to the kingdom, — a harsh and gloomy 
view of life, which found expression in John's 
preaching of repentance in the wilderness. 

Though dissimilar, yet all these views had 
various elements in common, which mark 
the limitation of the Judaism of that day, 
and which by contrast enable us to com- 
prehend the originality of Jesus and the 
power of his gospel. They all represented 
the kingdom of heaven as something to be 
waited for, and therefore as beyond the reach 
of individual effort ; they all laid much stress 
upon certain externals, but varying from gross 
to refined materialism ; they all fostered the 
pride of race, and denied universal humanity 
by claiming pre-eminence for Israel. 



The Glad Tidings. 153 

Now Jesus, in taking up the phrase, *^ king- 
dom of heaven," put himself in sympathetic 
relation with the popular hope; yet he ac- 
cepted none of the views then current. He 
severely rebuked the political interpretation. 
He said, '* Render therefore unto Caesar the 
things which are Caesar's." ^ He said also, 
according to another report, '' My kingdom 
is not of this world." ^ The scope of his sym- 
pathies was universal humanity. He looked 
to man as a man, and loved him as a brother, 
without any regard to his relations of race. 
To rebuke the pride of his countrymen he 
told the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus 
also rebuked the materialistic expectations 
of external glory: ''The kingdom of God 
Cometh not with outward show." ^ He gave 
his benediction to the meek rather than to 
the contentious; he called men to service 
rather than to conquest; his attitude was one 
of humility rather than of self-assertion ; he 
praised the peace-maker rather than the war- 
rior. His gospel abounds with the emphases 
of duty rather than of personal rights; he 
sought to change the disposition of the heart 
rather than the political relations of his peo- 

1 Matt. xxii. 21. 2 John xviii. 36. 

2 Luke xvii. 20. 



1 54 Jesus Brought Back. 

pie. He saw that the reorganization of so- 
ciety must flow from the perfection of the 
individual. 

Jesus was too catholic and too practical to 
accept the ascetic interpretation. While his 
kingdom was not of this world politically, yet 
it was not a kingdom of other-worldliness. 
Jesus, moreover, was no recluse, but mingled 
with men and enjoyed life in pure ways. He 
even went so far that the ascetic party called 
him a ** wine-bibber." He insisted upon ful- 
ness and richness of Inner Life, the control of 
the animal by the rational, rather than upon 
crucifixion of the flesh. His purpose was to 
train men to live purely in the world rather 
than to shun and renounce the world. He 
saw the danger of riches ; but he placed his 
emphasis on inward power rather than on 
outward poverty. He honored John the Bap- 
tist; but he broadened and softened the ideal 
of life presented by that gloomy prophet. 
Jesus insisted upon repentance, but in another 
tone and for a higher object; that is, as 
the beginning of personal perfection, not as 
merely the preparation for the Messianic king- 
dom as an outward dispensation. He even 
^aid that the least in the kingdom of heaven 
is greater than John; by which he meant 



The Glad Tidings. 155 

that any one who accepted his own interpreta- 
tion of the kingdom of heaven, and hved by- 
it, was greater than John, who clung to the 
notion of an external Messianic kingdom. 

Jesus agreed with the more spiritual-minded 
of the Levitical party in so far as they re- 
garded the Messianic time as a reign of right- 
eousness, — as the spiritual ministry of the peo- 
ple Israel, rather than as the political exalta- 
tion of Jerusalem. But in all other respects, 
his departures from their ideal and method 
were profound and radical. He differed from 
them respecting the source and quality of 
righteousness.^ Both said that purity of heart 
is the all-essential; but even to the best 
Pharisees righteousness was the product of 
studied obedience to a code, while to Jesus 
righteousness was the product of a free and 
spontaneous love. They insisted upon rit- 
ual-purity as the means to heart-purity; he 
conceived of heart-purity as a native spiritual 
growth. Such words as forgiveness, mercy, 
compassion, and tenderness belonged to the 
vocabulary of both ;2 but the Pharisees looked 

1 See Wellhansen, History of Israel, pp. 499-513. Also, 
Hausrath, New Testament Times, vol. ii. pp. 142-156. 

2 See Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, pp. 25-88. 
Also, Deutsch, Literary Remains : The Talmud. 



156 y^^^^ Brought Back. 

upon the graces thus named as the results of 
obedience to Mosaism, while Jesus looked 
upon them as the results of education, con- 
ceived as a process of divine development. 
They said, Obey the law in order to gain 
this estate ; he said, Reach this estate by- 
growth as a man. The Pharisees appealed to 
the letter of the law, Jesus to the conscience 
of the individual. They insisted that the 
Gentile must become a Jew to enter the king- 
dom ; he, that the Gentile enters by right of 
what he is as a man. 

The Pharisees taught that the kingdom of 
heaven must be waited for, and that it could 
be entered only by the people as a whole in 
their corporate capacity. Jesus taught — and 
herein especially lay his originality and supe- 
riority — that the kingdom of heaven is at 
hand and accessible to the individual. And in 
this idea beyond all else we find the essential 
greatness and immense power of the gospel. 
That responsibility which according to the 
popular theory rested upon Israel as a people, 
Jesus brought home to the individual con- 
science in such a way as to make each man 
feel that he himself stood face to face with 
God; that Messianic glory which was ex- 
pected as a national dispensation, which the 



The Glad Tidings. 157 

individual could possess only as it came to 
the State as a whole and descended thence 
to him, Jesus set before each one as a posses- 
sion within the reach of his own will; and 
that providence of God which was conceived 
as directed toward the family of Abraham in 
its entirety, Jesus focused upon each soul, 
making the individual feel that the father- 
hood of God meant a particular tenderness 
and watch-care for himself. 

Thus Jesus completely revolutionized the 
conception of the method of salvation. He 
taught that man ascends, not because he is 
forced upward by the momentum of his com- 
munity, but because he himself chooses to 
ascend ; that the Messianic glory, instead of 
being a public blessing first, which then 
descends to the individual, is first the acqui- 
sition of individual hearts and so passes from 
a private grace to a general emancipation. 
This was a message of joy and power be- 
cause it placed the key of heaven in the 
hands of each individual.^ 

Jesus' central thought, then, was this : The 
kingdom of heaven is Inner Life, the perfec- 
tion of man as a spiritual being, which comes 
from putting the soul above the flesh, the ra- 
1 Baur, Church History, vol. i. p. 35. 



15^ 7^^^^^ Brought Back. 

tional above the animal, our eternal good 
above momentary gratification. All of which 
Jesus pictured in that paradoxical saying, 
*' He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he 
that hateth his life in this world shall keep it 
unto life eternal." ^ Or in other words we 
may say: The kingdom of heaven is not a 
corporate institution, but a quality of life 
founded in the moral and religious nature of 
the soul ; not an outward realm to be en- 
tered by fictitious duties and rites, but a soul- 
possession, the heritage of children and the 
childlike; not a general dispensation that 
must be waited for, but a moral disposition 
into which the individual may grow at once. 
Jesus, then, believed in an ethical kingdom 
that is already here, which the individual can 
possess by an act of his own will. 

Consider his clear and pointed language: 
Say not, Lo here, or lo there, as though it 
were an external dispensation coming from 
above, or a political order to be constructed ; 
but, Behold, the kingdom of heaven is within 
you, — a certain quality of individual life. He 
locates it within the heart: '^Blessed are the 
poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven." He likens it to a childlike trust: 

1 John xii. 25. 



The Glad Tidings. 159 

" Suffer the little children to come unto me, 
for of such is the kingdom of God." He lays 
emphasis upon love as the creative and sover- 
eign power of that kingdom : ** Love your 
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good 
to them that hate you, and pray for them that 
despitefully use you and persecute you ; that 
ye may be the children of your Father which 
is in heaven." ^ He calls man to self-sacri- 
fice, to that bearing of burdens for others 
which Paul named the 'Maw of Christ," ^ to 
that joyous yielding up of one's will to the 
good of humanity w^hich is especially the 
Christian spirit: '* If any man will come after 
me, let him renounce himself, and take up 
his cross daily, and follow me." ^ To the 
sensualist he said, ''Whosoever looketh on a 
woman to lust after her hath committed adul- 
tery with her already in his heart." ^ To the 
earnest young Jew who had never learned to 
live for others he said, " If thou wilt be per- 
fect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to 
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
heaven : and come, and follow me." ^ To the 
selfish who seek applause he said, "Whoso- 

i Matthew v. 44, 45. '^ Galatians vi. 2. 

3 Luke ix. 23. 4 Matthew v. 28. 

^ Matthew xix. 21. 



1 60 yesus Brought Back. 

ever will be chief among you, let him be your 
servant/' ^ To the political enthusiast Jesus 
said, The kingdom of heaven is not a tem- 
poral government, but moral power within 
the heart. To the scribe, The kingdom of 
heaven is not a doctrine built up from texts, 
but a humane service flowing from sympathy : 
^' Therefore all things whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them : for this is the law and the prophets." ^ 
To the Levite : The kingdom of heaven is not 
a dispensation to be brought in by Levitical 
purity, but a spiritual possession into which 
the individual soul must grow: *^ These are 
the things which defile a man: but to eat 
with unwashen hands defileth not a man."^ 
To the Pharisee : The kingdom of heaven is 
not such righteousness as yours, concerned 
about trifles and intent on rewards, but a- 
righteousness springing from love and spend- 
ing itself in enthusiasm for humanity : '* Woe 
unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cum- 
min, and have omitted the weightier matters 
of the law, judgment, mercy, and fidelity: 
these ought ye to have done, and not to leave 
the other undone.'* ^ 

1 Matthew xx. 27. ^ Matthew vii. 12. 

^ Matthew xv. 20. * Matthew xxiii. 23. 



The Glad Tidings. i6i 

In brief, Jesus interpreted this phrase, '' the 
kingdom of heaven," as a spiritual estate of the 
individual soul, which is possible to man as 
the child of God, which belongs to man by 
virtue of his humanity, and which he can en- 
ter at once by the act of his own will. It is a 
quality of life, a motive power, a wealth of 
soul; in short, all those spiritual elements 
which make an exalted personality, the out- 
ward expression of which we call character. 
It is not merely something which belongs to 
man because of his race, but that which 
comes from his perfected humanity; not 
something to be won by Levitical forms, but 
a life which springs from growth or education 
of the soul; not a share in some political 
glory arising from revolution, but a kind of 
life which man is able to possess by his own 
choice. Therefore all those who love God 
and man, who are pure, tender, and earnest, 
who are trying to make the most of them- 
selves and to do the best for humanity, — all 
these are in and do possess the very kingdom 
of heaven. Jesus' doctrine, then, his descrip- 
tion of the kingdom of heaven, was in line 
with the great thought of the Hebrew proph- 
ets, whose writings he studied and whose 
spirit he cherished; but his gospel was a 
II 



1 6 2 Jesus Brought Back. 

fuller, riper, and clearer exposition of their 
thought, adapted to the conditions before 
him, presented through fresh and powerful 
illustrations, and exhibited and enforced by 
his own exalted personality. 

Now, to comprehend the greatness of this 
doctrine as it lay in Jesus* mind, and to ap- 
preciate the wonderful grasp and clearness of 
his thought, we must study his detailed ap- 
plication of it to the problem of practical life. 
Jesus put emphasis on repentance as the 
necessary preparation of each man for the 
kingdom of heaven, viewed as an estate of 
moral excellence. His position was, not that 
all are great sinners, nor that all are equally 
sinful, but that every man must feel the shame 
of sin and turn from whatever evil way he 
may have been travelling. The initial ele- 
ment of the kingdom of heaven is this ear- 
nest desire to change one's life for the better, 
— a condition of the heart which compre- 
hends both the consciousness of sin and the 
yearning for holiness. No man can begin 
the divine life except in that serious recog- 
nition on the one hand of the enormity of 
sin, and on the other hand of the excellence 
of unattained virtue. So Jesus demanded that 
every man must turn from whatever evil there 



The Glad Tidings. 163 

IS in him, and go up higher. There must 
first be ** a life-giving change of the inner 
many His language was, " Except ye re- 
pent, ye shall all likewise perish,*' ^ — the 
statement of a universal law; but the infer- 
ence that this repentance can only occur in 
this life is an irrational and unwarranted as- 
sumption of Orthodox theology. Thus, in 
Jesus' doctrine of repentance there is a di- 
rect and searching appeal to the conscience, 
to the divine within the human, which makes 
the gospel the power of God unto salvation. 

Beginning in the depths of our moral na- 
ture, in genuine sorrow for sin and earnest 
yearning for holiness, — repentance, — the 
kingdom of heaven unfolds by the method of 
growth, illustrated by the leaven which leav- 
ens the whole lump ; by the seed which 
yields a hundred fold ; by the talents which 
double at interest ; and by the plant, where 
first we have the blade, then the ear, and 
then the full corn in the ear. Its method of 
development is a spiritual process as natural 
as organic growth, — the unfolding of in- 
herent possibilities. 

The supreme spirit of this kingdom of 
heaven, the motive power by which it un- 

^ Luke xiii. 3. 



1 64 yesMs Brought Back. 

folds, is love. Its vital and organic impulse 
is that affection for God as Father which 
makes worship simple, filial, and spiritual; 
and that devotion to the human which de- 
spairs of no soul and serves all souls, — that 
spiritualized humanity which forgives ene- 
mies, creates boundless sympathy, and returns 
good for evil ; and this creative principle of 
the divine life, love, Jesus set forth in forms 
of imperishable beauty and undying power 
in those great parables, the Good Samaritan, 
the Prodigal, the Good King. 

And the quality of this Inner Life, thus 
rooted in repentance and built up through 
love, is purity, — a purity not of the body 
but of the soul ; a purity not simply assumed, 
but regnant at the very centre of being. Je- 
sus taught with marvellous wealth of illus- 
tration and with convincing earnestness that 
the heart itself, the realm of motive and the 
spring of action, must be pure. Conduct 
radiates from within; purity there, and then 
there will be purity everywhere. Out of the 
heart the mouth speaks ; man is defiled not 
by his outward conditions, but by his inward 
disposition. At the innermost centre of life 
there must be built up a nucleus of pure 
sentiment, and then every look will be chaste 



The Glad Tidings. 165 

and every word undefiled. Moreover, in such 
purity of heart God will be found. 

Repentance, then, is the preparation, growth 
the method, love the motive, and purity the 
quality of that Inner Life which constitutes 
the kingdom of heaven. Here is a doctrine 
without any limitations of race or time, which 
applies to man as man, — a doctrine which 
begins with the soul itself and declares the 
simple truth respecting man's moral nature ; 
a doctrine full of gladness, power, and eman- 
cipation, because it goes home to the con- 
science and finds lodgment there as a word 
of life. Jesus did not, indeed, create the 
moral law, any more than Aristotle the prin- 
ciples of logic ; but he gave to man's moral 
nature an original interpretation, and he 
made a plea for spiritual manhood which has 
authority for all time to come. 

In this doctrine shines forth clearly the 
greatness and originality of Jesus. He took 
a popular phrase, *' the kingdom of heaven,'' 
then associated with political fancies and Le- 
vitical absurdities, and so interpreted it as to 
make it the authoritative and perennially at- 
tractive description of essential religion. By 
it he carries each man down to the primal 
truth of his own soul and to the origiaal 



1 66 Jesus Brought Back. 

source of his conduct; while he lays bare the 
beginning, method, spirit, and quality of that 
life in which he must find the true glory and 
eternal joy of his being. By teaching that 
the kingdom of heaven is the perfection of 
man as spiritual and rational being, — that is, 
as child of God, — and by applying this 
thought to the problem of practical affairs, 
Jesus made this phrase a luminous and forci- 
ble definition of the true method of life. He 
loaded it with the essential truth respecting 
man's moral nature; and his gospel is im- 
perishable because based upon the constitu- 
tion of the soul. 

From this point of view, — that the kingdom 
of heaven is the perfection of man as spirit, — 
we can clearly see Jesus' doctrine of God, 
of man, of salvation. God is the Infinite 
Father who loves man as his child; eternal 
compassion is poured upon the world ; eter- 
nal tenderness watches over the turmoil of 
human life. As love is the deepest and di- 
vinest element in man, it is therefore the 
chief bond of union between human and di- 
vine ; and back of this derived human love 
there must be at its source in God an Infinite 
Love. This conclusion may not satisfy the 
logician, but it is the supremest effort of the 



The Glad Tidings. 167 

religious consciousness. Jesus took the di- 
vinest that he found in his own heart and 
carried it up to God. 

In view of this interpretation of God as love, 
which arose from his own consciousness of 
the nearness and intimacy of the Father, it 
follows that every soul has immediate access 
to God ; which does away with all schemes of 
mediation, such as sacrificial atonement or 
Levitical propitiation. It follows that all souls 
belong equally to God by right of sonship, 
which means human equality; and it follows 
also that though God demands obedience and 
purity of man, yet God is a co-worker with 
man for his good, and only asks of man the 
best that he can do, while he simply demands 
of the utmost sinner genuine repentance. 
In Jesus' doctrine of man we have pre-emi- 
nently a practical view of human nature. He . 
took the facts of life as he found them and 
entered into no speculation respecting the 
origin of evil. He saw good men and also 
evil men ; but none so good as they ought to 
be ; hence all ought to repent, and live a bet- 
ter life. Jesus saw no lost human beings and 
he never pictured human nature as totally 
depraved. He dealt with particular sinners 
as persons of dwarfed humanity, as the mor- 



1 68 yesus Brought Back. 

ally diseased, who had allowed the carnal to 
overcome the spiritual ; but who even in their 
degradation possessed an indestructible nu- 
cleus of uncorrupted spirituality, which ought 
to be cultivated and which might be made 
supreme. Jesus laid great stress upon the 
divine possibility of the soul; however ap- 
parently dead, there was deep down in it 
some spark of life; and this vital element 
must be kindled into a flame filling the whole 
being. 

And in all his ministry among sinners, he 
strove to reach this hidden spark of human- 
ity and to develop it into the ruling motive 
of life ; as the; physician takes the vitality 
which his patient possesses and from it builds 
up normal conditions and healthy tissues. 
It was his penetrating insight in detecting this 
remnant of nobility and his method of ten- 
derness in fostering it, that made him so suc- 
cessful in lifting sinners to a new life, as in 
the case of Mary, Zaccheus, and others. And 
while Jesus recognized the weakness and way- 
wardness of human nature, he fully appreci- 
ated the sanctity of man as man, and regarded 
all men as gifted with imperishable capacities 
for a divine life and an unending progress. 

From this we pass directly to Jesus* doctrine 



The Glad Tidings. 169 

of salvation. He planted himself squarely 
upon the realities of life: Men live in sin; 
yet they have capacity for holiness. All have 
an inner centre of spiritual vitality ; then let 
men depart from sin by obeying and cultiva- 
ting whatever divine element remains in their 
nature. And the only method by which we 
can help the sinner is to lay hold of that nu- 
cleus of moral power and make it the motive 
and law of his life. The imperative duty of 
every man is to live a divine life, — to live as 
a child of God by realizing his implanted 
possibilities as a spiritual being. The way of 
salvation, as already described, begins in re- 
pentance, proceeds by growth, broadens into 
love, and ends in purity of heart; and all 
this is itself the kingdom of heaven. 

The commanding call of Jesus to man was 
neither to believe in a dogma, to obey a rit- 
ual, nor to live as an ascetic, but to serve his 
neighbor in love. If any are sick, if any are 
sad, if any are sinful, be to them a friend ; and 
by enlarging their Inner Life, create the king- 
dom of heaven. Jesus saved sinners — lifted 
them above their sinful habits — by laying 
hold of the best within them, and developing 
that best element through hope, sympathy, 
and personal influence, until he made it the 



1 70 yesMS Brought Back. 

controlling motive of their life. Jesus did not 
settle for man's sins and shield him from 
punishment ; but he lifted him above the sin- 
ful disposition by making the better nature 
supreme. And we must follow the same 
method. Whatever tends toward increase of 
Inner Life, whatever enables man to realize his 
spiritual possibilities, belongs to the method 
of salvation. The power and simplicity of 
Jesus' gospel are expressed in this declara- 
tion : Depart from evil by cultivating the life 
of the soul ; by realizing the possibilities of 
your humanity. And man is saved in pro- 
portion to the completeness of his Inner Life, 
which is his divine life ; which is also his life 
in God. 

Now, we see that Jesus was not a theolo- 
gian attempting to define God, nor a mere 
moralist describing the moral law as an out- 
ward rule of conduct, but a prophet of the 
Spirit, hallowing the associations of the Di- 
vine Name, and showing men how to find 
God in their own souls and how to come into 
immediate relations with him as a Father. 
Jesus was also a prophet of the soul, pictur- 
ing in the phrase ''kingdom of heaven'' an 
ideal and method of life which «hows man 
how to rise above the animal and live his best 



The Glad Tidings. 171 

self; and which, by setting up in the spiritual 
nucleus of his being processes of growth, 
does carry the development of his true hu- 
manity to completion. Thus, the gospel of 
Jesus restores man to the consciousness of 
his moral possibilities as a child of God, and 
through that consciousness enables man to 
begin a new life. 

It is easy to see why these teachings were 
Glad Tidings. They made every man his 
own master, so that his entrance into the 
kingdom of heaven depended solely upon his 
own act. He need not wait for a political 
revolution or for the exaltation of Israel as a 
people; he need not depend upon privilege 
of race or the favor of priests ; he need not 
be held back by Levitical uncleanness or by 
the condemnation of the synagogue. Jesus 
taught that the kingdom of heaven is a moral 
estate, which belongs to man by right of his 
humanity ; that he must lay hold of it as an 
individual; and that its possession depends 
solely upon his own choice. This doctrine 
cut the bonds of pride and prejudice and 
caste, and swept away the vexations of ritual 
and the subtleties of dogma, while it set man 
upon his feet as the child of God, conscious 
of divine possibilities, free to shape his own 



172 Jesus Brought Back. 

destiny, and privileged to enter the kingdom 
of heaven at once. 

This was a word of emancipation which 
scattered gloom by bringing light and joy. 
Jesus' teachings were also Glad Tidings, not 
only because they restored spiritual freedom 
to man and made him conscious of his hu- 
manity, but because they presented the sim- 
ple humanities as the way of salvation. Jesus 
made a higher but a less vexatious demand 
upon man. When he called to men engaged 
in a painful obedience to scores of ritual pre- 
cepts and showed them that heart-life and 
practical goodness, reverence, and sympathy, 
are sufficient, he lifted a great bondage and 
planted a mighty joy. 

But even more than this: By directly ad- 
dressing their hearts with words of hope and 
tenderness, by pressing home stories illustra- 
tive of pity and compassion, and by touching 
with inspiration the dormant elements of their 
better nature, Jesus created sympathy and 
started the flow of aspiration. And such 
spiritual growth is infinite gladness. We are 
never so happy as when the heart is welling 
up with pure and noble sentiments. As Jesus 
spoke, men saw themselves in a new light, — 
the Father's benediction lay all about; the 



The Glad Tidings. 173 

kingdom of heaven was at hand to be pos- 
sessed at will by right of their humanity ; the 
way of salvation stretched out before them 
through loving reverence and humane service 
and purity of heart ; and as they listened to 
all this, and saw all this, they felt the new life 
within. That was joy indeed. 

And how vast the difference between these 
Glad Tidings and the church creeds ! How 
completely theologians have failed to under- 
stand and interpret Jesus correctly, by trying 
to formulate his teachings into a cold and 
formal body of divinity, which indeed has no 
divinity. Jesus made men feel God's presence ; 
the creeds attempt to define his person. Jesus 
pictured God as brooding love in immediate 
contact with the soul ; the creeds insist that 
God is angry and demands propitiation. Je- 
sus makes his starting-point the divine pos- 
sibility of man ; the creeds begin with total 
depravity. Jesus appealed to man's con- 
science in order to inspire him to put away 
the shame of sin, and accept the kingdom of 
heaven as Inner Life ; the creeds magnify the 
fear of hell-fire to compel belief, even against 
reason. Jesus put his emphasis on repent- 
ance as man's necessity and God's require- 
ment; the creeds lay stress on vicarious 



1 74 Jesus Brought Back. 

satisfaction. Jesus called the doer blessed; 
the creeds have blessed the believer. Jesus 
pictured the method of salvation as growth 
of soul, — making the most of human nature; 
the creeds describe a miraculous conversion, 
— the acceptance of another nature. Jesus 
placed goodness supreme; the creeds make 
doctrine essential. Jesus taught the neces- 
sity of a higher righteousness, springing from 
love and consisting in the perfection of hu- 
man nature ; the creeds teach that man's sins 
must be covered by imputed righteousness. 
Jesus' gospel is full of parables illustrative of 
loving kindness as God's attitude to man and 
as man's duty to his neighbor ; the creeds are 
full of abstruse notions respecting election, 
baptism, and justification. Let us put aside 
these monstrous misrepresentations of Jesus* 
teaching, and refresh ourselves with his words, 
which are still Glad Tidings. 



THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO-DAY. 



REFERENCES. 

Some Modern Estimates of Jesus: 

1. Channing, Works: The Imitableness of Christ's Character, 

and The Character of Christ. 

2. Keim, Jesus of Nazara, vol. vi. pp. 390-425. 

3. Parker, Speeches, vol. i. : The Relation of Jesus to the 

Ages. 

4. Merriam, The Character of Jesus, in The Way of Life. 

5. Brooke, Christ in Modern Life. 

6. Vance Smith, The Spirit and the Word of Jesus, 

7. Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, ch. xii. 

8. Thom, Christ the Reveal er, essay i. 

9. Brooks, The Influence of Jesus. 

10. Dewey, Works : Christ Intelligible and Imitable. 

11. Diman, Lectures and Orations, nos. i, 2, and 3. 

12. Martineau, Hours of Thought, vol. ii. ; Sermons xiv.-xv. 

13. Abbott, Oxford Sermons, no. x. 

14. Chadwick, The Man Jesus, ch. iv.-v. 

15. Renan, Life of Jesus, ch. xxviii. 

16. Newman, Phases of Faith, ch. vii. 

17. Mozoomdar, The Oriental Christ: Introduction. 

18. Savage, Religious Reconstruction, ch. viii. 

19. Clarke, Common Sense in Religion, ch. xiii.-xv. 



THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO-DAY. 

MANY forms of thought with which 
Jesus was once associated have for- 
ever passed away. With their disappearance 
many notions about Jesus, which in their day 
were valuable instruments of human culture, 
have become obsolete. And as we must do 
the work of to-day with the intellectual ma- 
chinery of to-day, it follows that the ministry 
of Jesus must take its place in harmony with 
that scientific truth and that social method 
which are now supreme in the world of 
thought and action. Jesus must be viewed 
in connection with all the new truth which 
has been discovered respecting nature, hu- 
manity, and man ; and the help derived from 
him must flow through those educational 
forms by which it is found that the life of the 
race unfolds. 

The Messianic ideal of the apostolic age, 
with all its attendant fancies, has utterly van- 
ished away never to return ; and its Apocalyp- 
tic visions of glories and woes form no part of 



178 Jesus Brought Back. 

our anticipations. We are not watching for 
the descent of any such New Jerusalem ; and 
therefore that apostolic faith which pictured 
Jesus as coming in the clouds of heaven to 
put the sword of vengeance to Gog and 
Magog and to gather the faithful within the 
gates of pearl, has no meaning to us either 
as literal or poetical prediction. That throne 
and those ministering angels have disappeared 
from the circle of our ardent hopes and 
ruling fancies. Jesus no longer stands in the 
midst of any such cosmic panorama. That 
group of intense but fantastic expectations 
has as completely passed away as Zeus from 
Olympus, or Druid rites from English for- 
ests; and Jesus cannot be to us all that he 
was to the Christians of the first century, 
though he may have for us in many respects 
a more valuable ministry. They found in him 
a Messiah, at whose word, as they thought, 
the powers of evil would be swept from the 
face of the earth, which, thus cleansed, he 
would give to the righteous as a blissful heri- 
tage. But to us to-day he can have no such 
Messianic ministry, because we have no such 
ideal with which to associate him. Our hopes 
have another form, and our aspirations an- 
other direction. 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 179 

Later, while men were intent on that spec- 
ulative philosophy of creation which had for 
its centre the Logos-idea, it was natural that 
Jesus should be viewed as that Logos or op- 
erative agent of the Eternal. A logical neces- 
sity compelled that union of gospel history 
and Alexandrian theosophy. By thinking of 
Jesus as the Logos, or Creative Word, men 
obtained a religious and personal centre for 
their philosophy; while at the same time 
they obtained a philosophical basis for their 
religion, which gave dignity to their faith 
and vast scope to hope and imagination. 
But the problem, How is the ineffable God 
related to the world of matter? — which they 
tried to solve by the Logos-idea — has no 
meaning for us. All our energy is turned 
toward the discovery of the laws of the Divine 
Existence as manifested in nature, and our 
faith affirms the immanence of God in nature 
rather than his separation or isolation from 
nature. The Logos-idea is not the working 
theory of any modern investigator. The dis- 
covery of organic and physical processes 
never suggests to biologist or chemist the 
presence of Jesus the Logos as a creative 
factor or ultimate cause. Even those very 
words, *' Jesus the Logos,'' belong to the 



i8o Jesus Brought Back. 

dictionary of obsolete terms. Neither in 
the laboratory of the scientist nor in the 
study of the historian is any account now 
taken of this root-conception of that Christian 
Gnosticism which took such Hberties with 
the Divine Nature, and which mistook for 
realities a host of fancies as absurd and shad- 
owy as ever engaged the mind of man. We 
no longer indulge those daring and visionary 
speculations respecting the being of God; 
and what we know of the universe leaves no 
room for such a Logos. The mind instructed 
by science refuses to picture Jesus as a world- 
builder, and declines to associate him with 
any supernatural ministry whatever. Those 
moulds of thought are broken ; for the uni- 
verse presents itself to us as a cosmos, or 
realm of correlated forces, through which 
One Purpose pulses ; and neither in the spec- 
tra of the farthest star nor in the most 
rudimentary functions of the primordial pro- 
toplasm do we find any fact which hints any 
such creative machinery. The Logos-idea, 
therefore, describes none of the discoveries 
yet made, and offers no aid toward a solution 
of problems which still confront us; and 
whoever continues to use it proclaims him- 
self by that use a mystagogue unleavened by 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 1 8 1 

the thought of the present age. The fashion 
of the hour to speak of Jesus as **the Christ," 
as though he were a psychical intermediary 
between the soul and the Eternal, is a revived 
Gnosticism, which strips religion of virility 
and exiles Jesus himself into regions of mere 
mistiness. 

And now that the idea of natural law has 
swept the demoniacal from all space, and dis- 
sipated that fear of the Satanic which hung 
like a pall over the human spirit, it is no 
longer possible to think of Jesus as the con- 
queror of a personal devil. When men felt 
the air to be as thick with demons as we ever 
saw it full of snow-flakes, it was some comfort 
to believe that Jesus had endowed the cross 
with protective power. But these thoughts 
and fears have disappeared. We look out 
upon the world with other eyes ; and in our 
hearts dwells a supreme confidence that na- 
ture is both clean and friendly. That re- 
demptive ministry so long attributed to Jesus 
cannot now be connected with him, because 
the demoniacal realm from which he was sup- 
posed to rescue us is found to be a mere 
phantom. It has been swept away by that 
Baconian movement toward reality, which 
seeks to see things as they are. 



1 8 2 Jesus Brought Back. 

Man indeed needs help, but not deliver- 
ance from Satanic captivity, because there is 
no Satan to hold him captive. Man also 
needs protection, but not a shield from 
God's wrath, for such wrath is the fiction of 
an ignorant fear. The help and protection 
that man needs are rather that educational 
ministry which so expands his moral and ra- 
tional nature that righteousness becomes the 
supreme desire of his heart, while purity 
crowns him with peace. Thus, we must in- 
terpret Jesus' ministry, not with reference 
to those past forms of thought, but in con- 
nection with the truth now known and the 
social methods now operative. Jesus must 
be set in the midst of the universe viewed 
as a cosmos, and approached for that per- 
sonal influence which human life needs and 
which historic order permits. 

These considerations suggest the thought 
that accurate views of Jesus could not be ex- 
pected of men in various past ages. When, 
for instance, we study the Christian mind dur- 
ing the second century, we find on the one 
hand an intense moral earnestness, which, 
working through the Church as a social or- 
gan, pledged to equality and productive of 
the humanities, revolutionized the ideals and 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 183 

habits of men, and laid the foundations of a 
new civilization. But, on the other hand, we 
see a vast mass of dense superstitions, which 
made those people incapable of forming a 
true and rational opinion respecting Jesus* 
work. If we look into their writings any- 
where we find almost absolute ignorance of 
nature, an excessive demonology, a philo- 
sophical system long since outgrown, a nar- 
row and confused historic vision, a gross 
misconception of Hebrew prophecy, while 
their minds were incapacitated for calm judg- 
ment by the impending terrors of martyrdom. 
These, then, were the forms of thought with 
which they had to associate Jesus, and these 
the conditions under which they had to inter- 
pret his ministry. Now, it is evident enough 
that they* were neither capable of fully ap- 
preciating Jesus' character, nor of interpreting 
his mission with accuracy. We would not 
adopt their opinion nor accept their belief as 
authoritative upon any other subject; and 
surely, we ought to be even much more re- 
luctant to adopt their theory respecting so 
difficult a subject as the ministry of Jesus. 

Suppose we go, for another illustration, 
into the mediaeval monastery, where worked 
such a man as Anselm, or Aquinas. The 



184 Jesus Brought Back. 

occupants of such monasteries, in the better 
days of the system, were trying to keep the 
lamp of civilization burning ; they were also 
trying to bring semi-barbarians into some- 
thing like social and moral order. But there 
dwelt that ascetic fanaticism which produced 
an irrational and morbid conscience, which 
strangely misread both life and providence, — 
a conscience that condemned all pleasure as 
a sin, that emphasized physical filth as the 
way to spiritual purity, and that pictured 
God as delighting in man's pains and ago- 
nies. This morbid sense of sin as a debt, and 
this superstitious fear of God as a tyrant, 
working under the political environment of 
feudalism, gave rise to a description of Je- 
sus' ministry which represented his suffer- 
ings as a satisfaction of Divine justice. 

Anselm, who first systematically applied 
this idea of judicial satisfaction to Jesus* 
ministry, about A. D. iioo, thus argued: Man 
by sin is under God's infinite displeasure 
because he has disobeyed an infinite law. 
Man's perfect obedience being already due, 
he cannot possibly earn or gain any merit 
by which to discharge this infinite claim of 
off"ended Justice against himself. Yet Divine 
love desires his relief and redemption, which 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 185 

is brought about in this way : The suffering 
and obedience of Jesus, the God-man, — who 
took man's place, — being infinite because of 
his infinite nature, are accepted as a full sat- 
isfaction of man's indebtedness to God; so 
that justice is maintained and yet mercy is 
extended to man. 

But this theory was derived by applying 
the principles of feudalism, which was then 
dominant, to the relations of God and man. 
That crime and merit are great in proportion 
to the person involved, that offences can be 
settled or satisfied by payments, and that one 
individual can satisfy the claims of justice 
against a class of persons, — these were ruling 
ideas of those feudal ages, and they form 
the substance of Anselm's theory of the 
Atonement. And this idea of satisfaction 
for sin as a debt lies at the heart of all mod- 
ern theories of the Atonement, — though dif- 
ferent theologians, from Jonathan Edwards 
to Horace Bushnell, vary widely in their 
statements; but their different theories are 
too familiar to need even a brief description 
here. The general idea is retained in all 
Evangelical creeds, which contain some such 
language as this : ** Jesus' sacrifice of him- 
self for the sins of the world is the sole 



1 86 Jesus Brought Back. 

ground of forgiveness/' That is, Jesus' suf- 
fering satisfies God's justice, so that man is 
treated as though he had never sinned. Thus, 
the main thought in every Evangelical de- 
scription of Jesus as Redeemer is this : Jesus 
stands between sinful man and the wrath of 
God; and if the sinner puts his faith in the 
blood of Christ as such a settlement, God will 
accept Jesus' sufferings as a satisfaction of 
the claims of his justice against that sinner, 
and will henceforth treat him as though he 
had never sinned. The ministry of Jesus was 
then represented — which was very natural 
during the supremacy of feudalism — as a set- 
tlement, which gives man the rank of favorite 
at the Court of God, the Almighty Suzerain. 

Now, we cannot here enter into a full dis- 
cussion of the doctrine of the Atonement, 
but there are three remarks which we wish to 
make: — 

(i.) This theory from beginning to end is 
a tissue of assumptions, constructed in an age 
when speculation dealt in pure assumptions. 
There is in history, science, and human psy- 
chology no warrant for attributing such a 
redemptive mission to Jesus. The primary 
assertions of this dogma go far beyond the 
possible limit of definite knowledge. Who 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 187 

knows that God's justice demands the eternal 
damnation of the sinner? Who knows that 
such a schism exists in the Divine Nature be- 
tween justice and mercy? Who knows that 
God accepts Jesus' suffering or sacrifice as an 
equivalent for man's deserved punishment? 
Who knows that God treats the believer in 
Jesus' blood as though he had never sinned? 
Such matters lie beyond the reach of observa- 
tion ; and true reverence as well as true science 
demands silence where this dogma assumes 
absolute knowledge. And certainly Jesus 
himself never gave his disciples any reason 
for looking upon his death in any such light. 
(2.) The moral argument against this 
** scheme of salvation " is unanswerable. The 
fact that it is a ** scheme," that it represents 
sin as a '' debt" which can be settled, that it 
lays stress on *^ imputation," — these are fatal 
objections. How can the agony of one being 
free another from guilt? How can the sanc- 
tity of one soul be set down to the credit of 
another? The moral law is intolerant of all 
such substitutions ; and as soon as you begin 
to talk of the transferences of merit, you 
quit the sphere of morals altogether.^ 

1 For criticisms of the doctrine of the Atonement, see 
Martineau, Studies, article 4 ; Jowett, Paul's Epistles : 



1 88 Jesus Brought Back. 

(3.) The very origin of this description of 
the mission of Jesus utterly condemns it. Men 
who had no better conception of moral law 
than that which regards sin as a debt for 
which suffering can settle, and no better con- 
ception of God than that of a feudal lord who 
remits punishment provided that somebody 
suffers, and thus placates his offended sover- 
eignty, — such men, we affirm, were in no 
position to give a true description of Jesus' 
work. The monastic conscience and the feu- 
dal system of government which suggested 
Anselm's theory, and which underlie the tra- 
ditional doctrine of redemption, having been 
outgrown, the doctrine itself ought to be 
abandoned along with the type of civilization 
of which it was a part. Therefore we insist 
that those old notions respecting Jesus' mis- 
sion ought to have no place in human life, 
when the general conceptions of duty and 
providence upon which they were dependent 
have disappeared ; and disappeared they now 
have most completely. 

Dissertation on the Atonement ; Channing, Works : Unita- 
rian Christianity ; Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, 
pp. 194-204; Hedge, Reason in Religion, book second, 
ch. X.; Peabody, Christian Doctrine, sermon vii.-viii.; 
Brooke, Freedom and Faith, ch. xiii, ; Scotch Sermons, 
no. xxiii. 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 189 

And in attempting to describe the ministry 
of Jesus to-day we must take into account 
what has happened since the creeds were 
formulated. 

A new conception of the universe has grown 
up in the scientific mind during the last few 
years. We have found the place of the earth 
in the solar system ; we know something of 
the place of our solar system amidst the stel- 
lar spaces. The vast distances of creation 
have stretched out until fancy sinks exhausted 
in fruitless attempts to calculate them, using 
the orbit of Uranus for a measuring rod ; the 
spectroscope has brought forth marvellous 
proofs of unity ; a wondrous order has been 
traced from atomic movements to the highest 
forms of life. Every day adds some discovery 
illustrative of the unity, order, and sanctity of 
that infinite energy which fills all space. 

Now, this truth respecting the universe was 
not known to the early creed-makers. If 
they had known it there would have been no 
Nicene and no Athanasian creed; for it is 
impossible to bring the historical Jesus of 
Nazareth into relation with such facts and 
continue the old discussion respecting his 
mystical relation to the Eternal. All those 
JidccLS respecting his incarnation, his rank in 



1 90 Jesus Brought Back. 

the Godhead, his Logos character, vanish like 
mist when Jesus is viewed in connection with 
a cosmic background such as the universe 
presents to the scientific mind. The man 
who sweeps the star-sown vault with a tele- 
scope, or studies the living forms which swarm 
within the field of the microscope, does not 
stop to argue against the claim that the babe 
which lay on Mary's bosom was *' very God 
of very God ;'* the thought is too irrational for 
a moment's consideration. These discoveries 
of science respecting the universe have made 
it impossible to think of Jesus any longer as 
the creative agent of this infinitude of worlds. 
This fancy cannot co-exist with a full appre- 
ciation of those facts which constitute the 
body of scientific, knowledge. If the church 
fathers had known this affluence of creative 
power, they would have ascribed no celestial 
ministry to Jesus.^ It is absolutely impossi- 
ble for us, knowing some of the secrets of the 
skies, to see any such ministry for him there. 
And Truth reverently lays the command of 
silence upon lips that would assert his deity. 

The greatest discoveries of physical and 
biological science can indeed help man but 

1 See Martineau, Hours of Thought on Sacred Things, 
vol. ii. p. 210. 



The Ministry of yesus To-day. 191 

little toward a true and complete appreciation 
of Jesus as a moral being and religious influ- 
ence ; but those discoveries ought to keep us 
from putting Jesus into false relations with 
the universe, and also from attributing ficti- 
tious functions to him, — all of which is a 
vast, even if a negative, gain. 

In recent years our historic vision has been 
cleared and extended. The evolution of hu- 
manity has been traced ; the progress of civi- 
lization is understood as a display of purely 
human forces ; a reign of law has been found 
in the complex affairs of society; the appli- 
cation of the comparative method has brought 
to light surprising affinities and unities in 
languages, institutions, and religions. Our 
views respecting the origin and progress of 
the race have been radically changed. We 
now clearly see that fetichism is no Satanic 
affair, but a necessary stage in the progress 
of humanity ; pure morality is not the gift of 
God to a favored few, but the realized possi- 
bility of the soul, reached in many lands 
through educating experience ; while religion 
is not a revelation externally imposed, but the 
natural product of the human heart, varying 
as the quality of man's life varies. 

Now, all these important truths were un- 



192 yesMs Brought Back. 

known to those theologians who sought to 
fix Jesus' place in history; and if they had 
known what we know of humanity they would 
not have claimed for him that unique and 
supernatural rank. For viewed in the light 
of historic truth, the personality of Jesus 
does not stand by itself, as it once appeared ; 
we see in him the play of forces that operate 
in the race at large. He is no alien visitant, 
but the flowering of humanity. When we 
clearly apprehend the conclusions of historic 
science, we see also that Jesus is no miracle 
of Providence ; and we see, moreover, that 
he has had no ministry that has abrogated 
or overriden the historic order of society. 
When we read the texts of Ancient Egypt, 
the Sermon on the Mount, though still stand- 
ing highest, ceases to stand alone. When 
we read the Avestas we learn that Jesus did 
not bring immortality to light, though he 
cleared our vision of eternal life. When we 
read the Dhammapada, we find that there 
was another spirit akin to his, pleading in 
similar tones for equality and love and pity. 
And when we read the story of the Pious 
Butcher in the Mahabharata, we touch a ten- 
derness equal to that of the Good Samaritan. 
If, therefore, we interpret Jesus' ministry 



The Ministry of yesus To-day, 193 

aright, we must view him in connection with 
all these facts, which were unknown to those 
who asserted for him a supernatural influence. 
Necessarily, then, the old estimates of Jesus 
are largely at fault, just because those who 
made them were so ignorant of the history 
of humanity. And when we view the great 
teacher of Nazareth in connection with our 
modern conceptions of human life and historic 
order, we are forced to the conclusion that 
Jesus, being neither the sole cause of prog- 
ress nor the one teacher of truth, is not the 
head of any redemptive economy outside 
the lines of universal moral laws, but rather 
the chief in a brotherhood of influential 
prophets. 

Something else, too, has happened since 
the days of creed-making, which must neces- 
sarily change all ancient theories respecting 
Jesus* ministry. Lessing, a century ago, 
poured a shower of light upon the centuries 
by teaching us to look upon the history of the 
nations as a Divine education of the human 
race. Since that day, in the field of social 
effort every evil has been studied and treated 
from the standpoint of education ; and cure 
and prevention have been secured just in 
proportion to the wisdom and thoroughness 
13 



194 Jesus Brought Back. 

of the application of this educational spirit 
and method. 

To-day we depend solely upon the method 
of education to realize the possibilities of 
the individual and to perfect human society. 
The educational idea has taken possession of 
the modern mind, and it is supreme in all 
departments of human activity. This educa- 
tional ambition and its affiliated philanthropic 
impulse are the supreme motives of our civili- 
zation. Where baptism was once used to 
secure the favor of heaven for the child, we 
provide an environment that will develop his 
powers. Where the cross was used to drive 
away the demons to insure his health, we 
use gymnastic training to perfect his physical 
organism. Where the catechism was studied 
to repress evil passions, we give manual train- 
ing which builds up physical manhood. The 
witch, who was formerly handed over to the 
exorcist, is now put under the care of men 
like Pinel, who strive by moral and natural 
means to restore the mind to its normal con- 
dition and action. The blind, who were for- 
merly made to touch a venerated relic to be 
cured, are now taught to read by men like 
Howe, who train the faculties which they do 
possess, as in the case of Laura Bridgman, 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day, 195 

and in the more remarkable recent case of 
Helen Keller. The imbecile who was for- 
merly neglected, being regarded as a signal 
example of God's hatred of sin, is now given 
careful instruction, and by beginning with 
whatever capacities he may possess, is lifted 
toward self-help and the dignity of manhood. 
Thus, everywhere, dependence upon super- 
natural agency has given place to dependence 
upon natural law; educational methods have 
been substituted for sacramental forms ; while 
the ascetic ideal of self-crucifixion has been 
crowded aside by the humane aspiration 
which commands that we must make the 
most of every human being. 

Now, this conviction that man is capable 
of improvement by the method of education, 
affirmed by mental science and confirmed by 
universal experience, necessitates certain radi- 
cal changes in the old notions of Jesus' min- 
istry. Those who formulated the doctrine 
of the Atonement represented Jesus* work as 
something done with Satan or God in man's 
behalf, — the settlement for sin or the satisfac- 
tion of ofTended justice. But, instructed by 
the educational idea, we occupy a wholly dif- 
ferent standpoint, from which a different way 
of salvation is seen spread out before us. 



196 Jesus Brought Back. 

In our interpretation of life, God*s demand, 
man's need, and humanity's glory is the per- 
fection of that man's nature by education, — 
not simply a schooling that will make him 
a more efficient bread-winner, but a training 
that will make him a complete man; not 
culture of the head alone, but of the heart 
also. The supreme necessity is not sacrificial 
mediation, but natural education. All that 
theologians said of Jesus as a redeemer from 
the guilt of Adam and the wrath of God has, 
therefore, no force or importance to-day, be- 
cause such doctrines are contrary to the edu- 
cational idea. The men who formulated them 
understood neither man's capacity nor man's 
need. 

The assertion that the application of Jesus' 
blood as a mystical something cleanses the 
soul from sin contradicts all educational phi- 
losophy. The assertion that Jesus' death 
propitiates God and makes him favorable to 
man, misrepresents the condition of the soul 
and its relation to Infinite Being as under- 
stood by the modern science of education. 
The assertion that man can be saved only 
as his human nature is reorganized by the 
incoming of supernatural grace, contradicts 
this primary postulate of modern educational 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 197 

philosophy, that man's ascension comes only 
from the development of inherent capacities. 
And in passing we may note that these as- 
sertions form no part of the gospel message, 
and have no warrant in the language of the 
New Testament. 

The method of education, understood, not 
as a mere worldly information, but as that 
entire process by which the soul unfolds, — 
this divine tcnf aiding lifts man above sin by in- 
crease of reason and refinement of sentiment 
rather than by the magical power of sacrificial 
blood. It looks toward something done in 
the soul rather than toward a bargain made 
with God as '' a magnified and non-natural 
man ; " and it secures that expansion of Inner 
Life by processes of growth native to the soul 
rather than by miraculous regeneration. And 
if we become obedient to the highest wisdom 
of the age and make ourselves most efficient 
workers for the noblest interests of humanity, 
we must be skilful ministers of this educa- 
tional idea. Everything has been adjusted to 
this commanding motive and method except 
religion ; and the necessity is imperative that 
the religious sentiment work in harmony with 
that philosophy which underlies the common 
school, and with that spirit which is supreme 



198 Jesus Brought Back. 

in the shining ranks of philanthropy. So that 
this much is clear : however we may regard 
Jesus' ministry, it must be as a method of 
education. The significance of his life must 
lie in what he does toward helping man 
realize his highest possibility. 

Thus, when Jesus is brought into connec- 
tion with our present conception of nature 
and our present theory of the method of hu- 
man progress, it is evident that he has no 
ministry as God-man or mediatorial redeemer. 
And when we reach this negative result a 
good deal has been accomplished. At one 
stroke those old notions respecting Jesus' 
mystical office, his humiliation, his vicarious 
suffering, his priestly intercession, his judicial 
justification of sinners, — all these are swept 
away and we are prepared to view Jesus in 
his purely human relations as a purely histor- 
ical force. For all through these ages he has 
had a real and powerful ministry. The pres- 
entation of Jesus himself has been an abiding 
and hallowing influence. We would not for a 
moment question the importance and pre- 
eminence of Jesus as a civilizing power; but 
we insist that modern knowledge compels us 
to regard him as the source of a moral influ- 
ence operating within historic limits ; while 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 199 

the modern philosophy of progress compels 
us to regard him as an educational force op- 
erating within the soul rather than as the 
agent of a propitiatory and sacrificial econ- 
omy conducted at the throne of heaven. 

The essential fact is that the simple story 
of Jesus' human life has moved men to better 
conduct. It has gone over the nations like 
'* a beam of light shot into chaos ; as a strain 
of sweet music unto him who wanders on 
amid the uncertain gloom, and it has charmed 
him to the light, to the river of God and the 
tree of life." ^ That gospel story was told to 
Greek philosophers and they hailed him as 
their divine teacher, while they turned to- 
ward the humanities of his message with vast 
zeal. It was told to hopeless slaves, and find- 
ing a new meaning in life and seeing the pos- 
sibilities of a new manhood, they took up the 
burden of life with a fresh interest and put a 
stricter fidelity into daily duties. It was told 
to dreamy Asiatics, and they shook off their 
lethargy and went forth as missionaries of the 
good ideal. It was told to hard-hearted Ro- 
man officials, and arrested by an upspringing 
tenderness and inspired by a longing for such 
holiness, they put on his yoke of love and 

^ Theodore Parker, Discourse on Religion, p. 296. 



200 J'esus Brought Back. 

went about doing good. It was told to frivo- 
lous and careless mothers, and the picture of 
that Galilean stooping to bless the children 
smote their hearts with shame, and they turned 
with solicitous care to the earnest duties before 
them. It was told to care-worn toilers who 
had lost all hope and had sunk to a merely 
animal drudgery, and seeing in that lowly life 
the glorification of their own toil, and learn- 
ing from him how the kingdom of heaven be- 
longeth to the poor, they became reconciled 
to their lot, and while gladness began to sing 
its song in their hearts a new fidelity guided 
their hands. 

Jesus was presented to dissolute youths like 
Augustine, and that stainless manhood awed 
them into repentance. He was presented to 
haughty chiefs who delighted in cruelty, and 
the vision of that infinite compassion unsealed 
the springs of pity, and the hand that bore 
the battle-axe busied itself with mercy. He 
was presented to scoffing worldlings, who 
reviled all sanctities, and standing in the pres- 
ence of One who dwelt in immediate com- 
munion with the Father, because loyal to his 
own soul, they were melted by the fervent 
heat of that piety, while they discovered by 
his help their own kinship to the Eternal. 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 201 

These are no fanciful conjectures but illus- 
trations drawn from history. All this and 
more has the story of his human life, the 
presentation of his sublime personality, ac- 
complished. And these are types of the only 
spiritual influence of Jesus with which we are 
acquainted. Undoubtedly he has received 
more attention in connection with the sacri- 
ficial idea, but this theological description of 
him has been very largely non-moral, while it 
does violence to all our modern conceptions 
of life and providence. But underneath these 
dogmatic notions respecting Jesus, has always 
operated his personal influence which has 
been educational in character; and this has 
been his real ministry. The presentation of 
Jesus himself, — the forceful illustration in his 
personality of a boundless sympathy, of unal- 
loyed simplicity and purity of heart, of unfal- 
tering fidelity to the sanctities of life, of in- 
tensest and most unselfish purity, — this has 
melted men to tears of repentance, armed 
men for heroism, furnished them with new 
ideals of life, and overmastered them with a 
sublime passion of devotion. And when we 
consider the grandeur of Jesus' character, 
when we consider the susceptibility of human 
nature to such impressions, when also we con- 



202 Jesus Brought Back. 

sider that greatness of character is a singu- 
larly communicable attribute, we are not 
surprised that these fruits have ripened wher- 
ever the gospel has been planted. 

And in such results, sown so thickly over 
Christendom, we see simply the transforma- 
tions of human life produced by a purely 
moral and historical force. So that, precious 
and grand as these fruits have been, we do 
not need anything to account for them but 
the capacity of human nature on the one 
hand, and the human personality of Jesus on 
the other. If we lay our hand upon the most 
surprising change wrought in any man by 
the gospel, we do not have to go beyond the 
moral influence of Jesus to explain it; and 
however superior in him, he shared that trans- 
forming power with others ; for just as we rise 
to the stature of perfect men do we likewise 
draw all men after us. We do not have to 
go into the celestial regions, or resort to 
a mystical supernaturalism, to explain why 
the story of Jesus has turned men from sin 
and relieved them of despair. If we only 
notice how the child is awed and attracted 
by the saintly face, how sympathy regenerates 
the outcast, and how association with purity 
purifies, we have the key to the mystery. 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 203 

And it is a fact of history that where the 
humanity of Jesus has been presented with 
greatest force and freshness, there these re- 
sults have been most abundant. AH the 
reforms of Christendom have been a re- 
emphasis of his humanity, of the spirit of 
his life. While the theologians of the early 
ages were disputing about his rank, the com- 
mon people, worshipping in the catacombs, 
were inspired and trained into holiness by 
fellowship with Jesus as the Good Shepherd. 
It was the spirit or mind of Jesus, then as 
now, which raised up men into true godliness. 
While the speculative intellect has put its 
emphasis upon the mystic office of Jesus, the 
religious sentiment has found its bread of 
heaven in the life which he lived. And those 
religious teachers w^ho have most earnestly 
commanded men '' to walk in his footsteps," 
from Paul down, have done most for human- 
ity. The reformers found Jesus hidden out of 
sight behind the sacraments while the voice 
of the gospel was drowned in the outcry 
over indulgences; and by putting the open 
Bible in the hands of the common people, 
they re-established the man Jesus as teacher 
and inspirer in hut and palace. It was a 
victory for the humanity of Jesus, though the 



204 Jesus Brought Back. 

creed-makers of the next century buried him 
out of sight again, and the decay of religion 
was immediate. By connecting him with a 
false notion of human history, and by making 
him the manipulator of an impossible scheme 
of mediation, they reduced Jesus of Naza- 
reth to a mere apparition ; so that those who 
clung to that dogma were so far ignorant of 
the Lord of Life. 

While English piety was dying at the top, 
the Wesleys spoke a word of power by in- 
sisting on an emotional fellowship with Jesus, 
— an experimental knowledge of the gospel. 
Man, they claimed, must repent and follow 
Jesus. However imperfect, still Methodism 
was a fruitful return toward the humanity of 
Jesus ; it brought men into sympathetic rela- 
tions with that life. When the gloom of 
Calvinism lay thick and chill over New Eng- 
land, — ministers reading the woes of the 
Apocalypse oftener than the glad tidings of 
Jesus, and preaching on predestination of- 
tener than on repentance, — Channing, a 
prophet of humanity, rose up, and with elo- 
quent and tender words made a plea for the 
humanity of Jesus which marks an epoch in 
the history of Christendom. Channing placed 
Jesus in our midst as an influential realiza- 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 205 

tion of the soul's possibility, and as a moral 
authority teaching and inspiring men respect- 
ing what they can and must be. It is not 
too much to say that with Channing dates 
a higher appreciation of Jesus, and also a 
larger influence of Jesus upon the lives of 
men. 

We find, therefore, that Jesus has been an 
agent of helpfulness in human affairs just so 
far as emphasis has been placed upon the story 
of his life, upon the spirit and method of his 
character. Whenever the Church has gone 
back to a more natural, faithful, and sympa- 
thetic presentation of Jesus himself, there has 
been a new era of spiritual progress; and we 
insist that the real ministry of Jesus, all the 
time, has been a ministry of education, — a 
helping of man to realize his possibility. 

Jesus so fully comprehended and so per- 
fectly lived the moral possibility of human 
nature that he became an educating person- 
ality, creative of nobler motive in every man 
brought into sympathetic relations with him ; 
and his ministry to-day is that of an edu- 
cating personality. And Jesus as an edu- 
cating personality stands for something more 
than a '' mere morality," and does something 
more than adjust our accounts with God. 



2o6 Jesus Brought Back. 

He so represents to us the double circle of 
our divine sonship and our human possibility 
that we become conscious of our spiritual de- 
scent and inheritance and thereby grow into 
our complete humanity. Moreover, he helps 
us most when, realizing our kinship to him, 
we find encouragement in the fact that as 
we share his humanity, what was actual in 
him is possible for us. But so far as we make 
him a unique God-man, so far do we cut down 
his educational power. And yet, whoever 
approaches Jesus in a sympathetic spirit for 
increase of life finds the rebuke of sin and 
the encouragement of hope ; he also finds in 
him the method of a true life and the mo- 
tives of right conduct ; so that as an influen- 
tial personality helping man to be his best 
self, Jesus still has vast and precious power. 

And with our views of human nature and 
historic order we see no room for any minis- 
try on Jesus* part, except some method of 
education by which he enables man to reach 
his moral possibility; for the only essential 
help which can be extended to any one is 
increase of Inner Life, — that truth and that 
love which make him a purer and stronger 
man. And while every soul must grow by 
its own inherent i processes, and learn moral 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 207 

truth directly by personal experience, — for 
which there is no substitute ; and while every 
man must put away sin by sincere repentance, 
which is the only way of escaping sin, yet 
there is in Jesus' life an educational force 
more effectual with the moral nature than 
any other known agency. We do not claim 
absolute perfection for his character, nor ab- 
solute infallibility for his gospel ; we believe 
that the ministry which he exercises is not 
exclusively his, but is shared by his more 
humble brethren ; and still we find in him an 
educating personality which has a wider range 
and deeper penetration of influence than that 
of any other prophet. 

Jesus founded religion on the all-impor- 
tance of Inner Life, interpreted as love to 
God and love to man; and once for all he 
demonstrated his gospel in his own person- 
ality. And in Jesus himself we find a clearer 
illustration of what we ought to be as moral 
beings, and thus obtain more motive power 
toward the realization of what we ought to 
be than anywhere else. Others have done 
their part and have been supreme in their 
sphere, — and this is well; for one star would 
not light the heavens, — so that civilization has 
not one but many sources of light and inspi- 



2o8 yesus Brought Back. 

ration. And yet Jesus educates the soul to 
holiness with an efficiency exercised by no 
one else, — as Aristotle has ruled in the realm 
of abstract thought with a power which no 
one else has possessed. 

It is only by this method of education that 
Jesus ministers to men to-day. When we tell 
the story of Jesus' life to the hardened sin- 
ner; how he went about doing good, sharing 
and lightening the deepest sorrows of man ; 
how he pitied wretched outcasts and be- 
friended sinners, and yet was so pure him- 
self; how despised, and yet loving all; how 
tempted, and yet ever faithful; how often re- 
pulsed, but never in rebellion against Provi- 
dence or in despair over man, — when we 
tell this story what are its effects? It arrests 
attention; it kindles admiration that rises 
into love ; it awakens hope that passes into 
aspiration ; the deep springs of sympathy are 
opened ; the dormant reverence comes forth ; 
the still small voice of conscience speaks in 
clearer accents. The conviction grows, I my- 
self will be like that. Is not this a true de- 
scription of what happens? And what is all 
this but a work of education, — the quicken- 
ing of dormant capacities, the development 
of inherent powers, the realization of that 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 209 

man's possibility? The presentation of Jesus 
does produce these results ; and they are the 
products of education, — of that process which 
brings man to his highest self and makes the 
most of his humanity. 

When you tell that wondrous story to your 
child, what do you seek? What really hap- 
pens? You seek to make the child see and 
feel what the highest life is ; you seek to cre- 
ate in the child a love, purity, and piety like 
that found in Jesus. And if successful, the 
result is reached by the method of education ; 
for his educating personality simply develops 
the moral and religious nature of the child. 
If we go back in our own experience and 
note the help received from Jesus, what do 
we find? He has taught us to pity the dis- 
tressed; he has taught us to forgive our 
enemies and to love the unlovely ; he has 
taught us how to resist temptation and to 
overcome lust ; he has taught us how, in the 
cares and sorrows of life, to flee within the 
soul and there find peace in communion with 
the Father. And he has added these motives 
and methods of life as an educating person- 
ality by helping us to realize our possibility. 

Among all the other agencies for the moral 
development of man there is none equal to 
14 



2 lo yesus Brought Back. 

the presentation of Jesus' personality; and 
in him dwells this inexhaustible source of 
educational influence, because he lived so 
superior a life. His essential spirit, that 
brooding love, that strict fidelity, that im- 
passioned holiness, constitute our command- 
ing '* ought." The kind of life which he 
lived has universal range. That simple piety 
is necessary in both hut and palace. That 
tenderness has eternal beauty, being as fresh 
and welcome each day as the sun. That 
spirit of self-sacrifice has imperative obliga- 
tion, being the essential element of man- 
hood. A great many things are needed to 
make a complete human life ; but the moral 
education given through Jesus is one of our 
supreme needs. ** To be a universal friendly 
presence in the whole of our common life ; " 
an abiding memory educating the heart to 
its best, — this is his ministry, and it is 
invaluable. 

It is not a gorgeous ritual, nor a presump- 
tuous dogma, nor an abstraction of philoso- 
phy, nor the dry light of scientific discovery, 
but association with moral truth in action, 
communion with character itself, which edu- 
cates the moral nature. Our successive 
regenerations date from our contact with 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 211 

influential personalities; and the purer that 
personal influence which encompasses and 
penetrates us, the farther are we lifted out of 
our animality and educated toward our proper 
humanity. So that to know and to love 
Jesus is to place ourselves within the influ- 
ence of a life which, from its purity and rare 
excellence, is exceptional in its power to 
stimulate and educate our moral nature. 

As we read other books, Plato, Dhamma- 
pada, Faust, we obtain vast good ; but as we 
read the Gospels, we feel with an urgency 
never anywhere else felt. Here is the Divine 
Life that I must be. As we study other men, 
Socrates, Hillel, Confucius, we are greatly 
instructed; but as we study Jesus, we are 
impelled to go forth and be that Divine Life 
by an imperative motive never anywhere else 
experienced. This is no invidious compari- 
son, and no claim of celestial rank for Jesus ; 
but a simple statement of the truth respect- 
ing his historical position and ministry of 
education. 

Now it is the duty of the Church to use 
Jesus' educating personality to perfect hu- 
man nature ; to enforce the lesson of his life 
and create his spirit, by presenting him, not 
as one who stood apart from humanity in 



2 1 2 Jesus Brought Back. 

rank, or as one who mediates between God 
and man, but rather as one who reahzed the 
moral possibility of man and showed once 
for all how men should live ; and by so liv- 
ing made himself a vast educational force. 
Jesus does not minister to us by applying to 
us the mystical merits of an impossible econ- 
omy of mediation, nor by presenting as a 
God-man the solution of a philosophical the- 
orem of creation ; but he serves us rather by 
showing us what we can be, and by inspiring 
us to be all that we ought to be. He saves 
us by educating our humanity; by what he 
adds to our Inner Life. And as Channing re- 
marked : *' Let no man imagine that through 
the patronage or protection of Jesus Christ, 
or any other being, he can find peace or any 
sincere good but in the growth of an enlight- 
ened, firm, disinterested, holy mind. Expect 
no good from Jesus any farther than you 
clothe yourselves with excellence.''^ And 
Paul used almost exactly the same language 
in describing Jesus' ministry: *'Let this mind 
be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus ; " ^ 
and '* If any man have not the spirit of Christ, 
he is none of his." ^ The power of the gos- 

1 Works, p. 316. 2 Philippians ii. 5. 

3 Romans viii. 9. 



The Ministry of Jesus To-day. 213 

pel, then, is the man Jesus ; " not that meta- 
physical personage reduced by the definitions 
of scholastic theology to a mere abstract and 
incomprehensible idea."^ What the Church 
ought to administer is not a dogma about 
Jesus, but the moral influence of Jesus. 

Then go forth, O Church, to make the 
spirit of Jesus prevail in the lives of men. 
So tell the gospel story with emphasis on 
love to God and love to man that sinners 
will repent, while all men will feel the sanc- 
tity of their sonship and the obligations of 
their brotherhood. Use the educating per- 
sonality of Jesus to develop the soul's best 
life, the hope that charms, the trust that 
calms, the love that sweetens, the fidelity that 
serves, and the heroism that conquers by pa- 
tience. And, laboring for such ends by this 
method, no blight can come to thy harvest, 
and no discord break in upon thy song. Sci- 
ence may go on from conquest to conquest, 
'' reconstructing the genesis of nature, laying 
over again the courses of the planets and 
leaning her ladder against the stars ; " ^ still 
the kind of life which Jesus lived will stand 
unimpeached as man's supreme necessity. 

1 Reuss, Apostolic Age, vol. i. p. 132. 

2 Hedge, Reason in Religion, p. 48. 



214 Jesus Brought Back. 

And while reason may sweep from our tem- 
ple some of its idols, and tear from the heart 
some of its radiant fancies, yet the goodness 
which Jesus made actual among the GaHlean 
hills, still remaining authoritative and shining 
with undimmed lustre, will forever help man 
to lift himself above his animal and transient, 
to his moral and eternal life. 



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